Nice to meet you

Thank you for the 5,000 <3

About six months ago, when I started this Substack, I made a promise: I’d be proud of myself once I hit 5,000 subscribers.

So this is me. Taking the moment. Attempting the pride.

It’s also a moment to introduce myself—sort of.

So here we go.

SJP (1992)

Hello.
It’s nice to meet you.
And thank you—truly—for being here.

This has been one of the most rewarding creative chapters of my life. Not because it’s a new source of income (though that’s nice), but because it feels like I’ve come full circle, back to the things I’ve always loved. The ones that were so obvious, I barely noticed them. Of course it was always this. How could it not be?

I was raised in a small town in Ohio that I love deeply, where my ambitions were outsized and my tolerance for boredom was nonexistent. School never held my attention, nor did anything I couldn’t immediately apply to the version of life I was inventing in my head: equal parts naïve and wildly glamorous.

“You’re living in a dream world.”
—My father

He wasn’t wrong.

At 18, that dream world drove me to New York. I wrote far too many cold emails, said yes to far too much unpaid work, and took jobs at magazines I’d never heard of until the day I applied. In my eyes, it didn’t matter. What mattered was proximity—to the city, to the industry, to the possibility. I figured if I could do the hardest thing, leave home, I could figure out the rest.

And so it began.

Thirteen years later, I’d collected four unpaid internships (well, technically, Hearst paid me enough to afford a cafeteria sandwich), eight NYC apartments, and a successful career in brand consulting that I loved very much… until I didn’t.

Then came this.

This weird, beautiful corner of the internet where I write to strangers who feel like friends. Where I get to be both creative and completely myself. Where I’ve come to feel, for the first time in years, that maybe I haven’t missed the point after all.

There was no strategy, no launch plan, no business model. It began out of restlessness. And then, person by person, click by click, it began to mean something.

I started saving screenshots—subscriptions from friends and people I’ve admired for a decade, kind messages, compliments I wasn’t sure I deserved. I put them all in a photo album on my phone titled Motivation. (I know. Groundbreaking.)

When I started, it held exactly 0 photos.
Today, there are 82.
(And yes—I just checked.)

So if you’ve ever wondered whether I noticed your message or subscription, I did. And if it sparked even a flicker of pride in me, it’s probably there, in that album. Filed under proof that someone’s listening.

---

The past two years have been quietly brutal. Not in the falling-apart-in-public kind of way, but in the invisible kind—the kind you carry while still appearing fine.

I tried to pivot, more times than I can count. I interviewed for roles I convinced myself were a better fit. I earned licenses I’ll never use (though technically, I can help you buy a house). I sent mildly unhinged pitch emails to friends about starting projects together. I nearly talked myself into lives I didn’t want, just to escape the discomfort of not knowing.

I wouldn’t call it desperation. But I certainly felt desperate.

And thank God for every “It was so good to meet you, but we’ve decided to go in another direction,” for every kind, vague no. Because without them, I might have ended up somewhere shiny but wrong.

Instead — I’m here. Still writing. Still questioning. Still hopeful.

The truth is, I left Ohio because the “what ifs” started haunting me. They still do.

What if I never do the thing I want to do?
What if I become a mother and my children aren’t impressed?
What if I can’t make a living in a way that feels good and true and mine?

The doubts are persistent, but they no longer dictate everything. Some mornings, I genuinely leap out of bed (after coffee) to write to you. To share something. To make something. To reach for something I can’t quite name. And in some ways, it feels like the most right and natural thing I’ve ever put my time toward.

Oh—and I know I said I’d introduce myself.

For now, I’ll keep that part private. Not because I’m hiding—IYKYK—but because it feels good to have something just for myself. It also feels good to know that people can enjoy what you make without seeing into every part of your life.

When the time is right, I’d love to meet you. Many of you, I already have—over midtown martinis, coffees, Zoom calls. You’ve been more generous than I ever imagined strangers on the internet could be, and I truly hope we can do it again soon.

I’m not writing this from a multi-million-dollar NYC loft.
I’m not wearing vintage Prada to buy paper towels.
I’m newly married. We’re figuring it out.
I’m figuring it out.

I hope, in some small way, you feel closer to me now, not because I’ve performed relatability, but because you see the cracks and the effort to build something meaningful anyway.

Most of what I write starts with a sentence that makes me laugh, alone at my desk. Those are usually the posts no one reads. So it goes.

Still, I hope you’re enjoying this as much as I am. 5,000 might not seem like much, but to me, it feels like a very full room—a stage I’d be too nervous to walk onto in real life.

So, where do we go from here?

I don’t have a fully baked strategy for monetization. I’m still unsure of the next evolution of this space. I worry I’ll backslide. I worry that this—like so many things before it—will stop being fun.

But here’s what I do know:

I don’t have all the answers yet. But I know I’m closer than I’ve ever been.
And something about that feels like momentum.
So I’m staying in it.
And I’d love for you to stay, too.