~ Draft ~

23 Jul 2026 - journal

Business ownership has allowed me to get to know more people than I’ve ever known, but somehow I’m lonelier than I’ve ever been in my life. Being vulnerable feels a thousand times harder because it feels like my livelihood depends on being well-liked by people who don’t understand me, especially as a queer and neurodivergent person in a small city in Kansas. Soooo, this blog post is my first try at dipping my toes into being vulnerable! I figure if anyone is here to read this blog post (hi! thank you!) they’ve gone through a fair bit of trouble to read my thoughts, especially in a format that isn’t being served to them in an infinite scroll.

If you’ve known me for a while, you probably know I had a super tight found-family-style group of friends that all moved away/scattered to the wind a few years ago, as people tend to do in this very transient community. (Or you might be one of them! Hi I love you!!) Frankly, my social life never recovered from that. Even though we’re still very much friends and supportive of each other, it felt almost like trying to enter the dating pool again after a divorce. How do people even meet each other? When is it appropriate to invite them over to hang? Am I too closed-off? Am I oversharing??

In the midst of this struggle to connect with people, we decided to open the business. I was meeting more and more people, but I felt distinctly “other” to them, and word would get back to me that I was described as weird, odd, eccentric. I don’t think people necessarily meant it in a bad way and I understand that it might theoretically “benefit my personal brand” or whatever if I’m seen as the eccentric artist, but it’s incredibly isolating. I was being told that I was thought of as a “different” kind of business owner, or, more to the point, a “different” kind of person.

This means it’s impossible for me to connect with other business owners in any meaningful or helpful way. How can I tell another business owner that I’m struggling or ask for help without it being taken as a personal failure because of my differences? How can I offer my skills and expertise effectively when I’m not being taken seriously or seen as an equal?

Now that we have the retail store, we’ve actually started building an incredibly vibrant and exciting community, but I still feel lonely in a full room, and my personality seems to have withered away. I guess that’s what I’m trying to do here - cultivate my soul a little. I want to allow myself to be vulnerable and actually be there for other people. My goal is to allow myself to live my life out loud for real - not just through my art, but through my body and voice and actions.

• Watching: Epicly Later’d
• Reading: Nana
• Drinking: Torch Blue Razz ᶘ ᵒᴥᵒᶅ
• Learning: that somebody not liking me won’t kill me dead actually