27. Empty Handed 🫥

“You can’t show up empty-handed!”

That’s what my French-Catholic stepdad would say when I got an invitation somewhere as a kid, and it stuck with me.

You know like those etiquette things that we silently carry with us into adulthood. As you can imagine, there was a lot of that: “look someone in the eyes when you speak”, “speak up, don’t mumble”, “put your shoes straight when you walk into someone’s home”, and “for heaven's sake, push your goddamn chair in when you get up from the table” 😂

We all carry these unwritten rules in the ways we interact with people, and that includes how we show up for other people as well.

What's funny is that before I drove across the country in 2025 to give back all the things I borrowed, took on, or didn’t belong to me, his voice was the one running in the background. Now I have a much gentler, softer, integrated version of me voice, thank God 😅

After being on the planet for 37 years now, you could say that I’ve been around the block a couple times. That included the birthdays, housewarmings, baby showers, get-togethers, and those just-because type of events within our friend groups. Every single one of those, I did the thing I always did. Pop by the grocery store, grab some flowers or a card and then off to the Wine Rack for some social vino; it was like clockwork. There was a system, there was a ritual in doing it the way I did, and I never showed up empty-handed.

Now fast-forward to 1 year post-integration, that ritual is still there but much more intentional.

It's funny cause I actually used Claude to help edit copy for this shop, and for a while it kept pushing back on why there were so many food products and drinks mixed in with everything else. It didn't make sense to Claude, and it couldn't see the macro scale of what I was building until a week into the edits 🫪

It all clicked when I said: “you know when you pop by the grocery store, grab a card, and then swing by the Wine Rack for a little something for the host? Yeah, that. I'm just replacing that ritual with the elevated version”. That’s what TQP actually is, right there clear as day.

So go grab a card. Grab your guilt-free beveragino from The SØbr Market. And maybe discover a lil' something along the way to treat yourself too, cause you only have one shot to be you on this planet, and you deserve it 😘

Same ritual, better version. Some things are worth upgrading.

Aakuluk 💕

- C