29. Perfect Timing 🕰️

Fun fact: I launched this store exactly 11 months ago, and I spent the better part of 9 months testing every other door imaginable, only to get back to basics and realize that it was the key all along.

You could say that I felt a bit dumbfounded after it all clicked; that the art, the store, the integration, the work- it was all connected. 

While I was testing all the doors, I had imagined myself in those scenarios, and each time I just couldn't quite envision it, and I'm a person who likes to visualize what things look like so that I could plan it inside out. Each door, I kept trying to fit myself into the equation and it just didnt quite fit.

With one of them, I was quite disappointed, tbh; 

The hammer dropped as I was walking into the Northern Store, "oh btw...", there were some words in and around being upset by the person dropping the bomb, and all I could say was "it's okay, that's just how it goes sometimes", and they were like "no! It's not okay!" 😅

At that point, I knew the universe was pointing me in another direction; I just couldn't say it outright in the Northern store porch lol.

As soon as the news dropped, I booked my flight out the next day. It was time to get back to my workstation and figure out what the next steps looked like; after all, I had just killed 10 months by that time. 

The pivot was born, and I spent the better part of the week going over copy so I could maintain my voice, 'cause let's face it: I was never polished enough, never quite wtv enough to fit into that box.

That box was never really mine to fit into anyway. Every door I tried was someone else's shape for my life, and I kept showing up with the wrong outline.

TQP was the one door I built myself. Hand-painted cards, a curated shop, my own voice, nobody else's checklist to clear. Eleven months in, and it turns out the thing I'd been testing every other door to avoid was the answer the whole time.

Nine months, one porch, one "it's okay, that's just how it goes sometimes." Turns out it really was. Just not in the way I meant it that day.

Sometimes you have to take the scenic route through the mud, just to realize that the paintbrush was the key to unlocking the entire map lol, so go find your metaphorical paintbrush brah.

You got thissssss 🙌

Aakuluk 💌

- C