Just a bunch of excuses and brainstorming

Some people hit their 30s and realize they were wearing a mask and have no idea what they actually want. I hit that around 23, found out what I wanted to do at 25 and procrastinated and self sabotoged for 4, almost 5 years. I underestimated how much this whole thing would feel like I’m playing catch up and miles behind people who didn’t let their ego get in the way.

I look at them envious, not because of their design skill or audience but because they did the thing. They didn’t sit there wondering if they were good enough or if anyone would pay attention. They just made the videos and decorated their friend’s houses and shared that online until someone started to pay attention.

I don’t know where to start and I’m so green with envy because of it.

I feel like I’m starting the marathon on the final lap and expected to win–physically impossible and crushing.

Everyone gets started somewhere. But I feel like those places are out of reach and unavailable to me.

Decorate your friend’s homes–for the majority of my 20s I haven’t had a single friend, so we can throw that in idea in the reject pile.

Decorate your own house–my moms interior design style is quite different than mine and I lack the freedom to do what I want to do or really grow my skills beyond Scandinavian with a dash of mid-century. Color, clutter, mixing of metals, and strong focal points doesn’t really work in the style. While I’ve excelled at making something beautiful, I really don’t think it’s something people would pay much attention to. We can throw that idea in the maybe pile.

Blog about the stuff you like–somehow the only path but I never really liked those blogs that show a mood board and handful of links with no content. Hardly something you can build an empire on, plus in the day and age of TikTok and Instagram, blogs don’t have as much foot traffic. Throw in AI and we have to wonder who the hell even reads a blog anymore?

Make YouTube videos–I struggle with this one. On one hand I can make videos reacting to other homes easily. Videos of people sitting in front of a camera talking about trends they like or things they’d never do as designers, seem to do well but I hate those videos. Make videos recording myself decorate my room, about 3 videos in that might get really really boring and I don’t even have as much control over that as I’d like. Most people seem to get started recording projects around their house or tours of their house, but see point #2.

Start a podcast–I’ve attempted to start a podcast about design 4 times in the past year. Each time the cohost backed out and once a company in the interior design space stole my concept right after I met with their Director of Marketing, so that left a very gross taste in my mouth. It’s become glaringly obvious that if I want to do a podcast, I need to do it all by myself and I’m not sure the format where anyone would want to listen to just me talk. I’ve reached out to people to interview but you’d be amazed how hard it is to get anyone in the design world to take an interview. While it’s still a possibility to do it entirely on my own, I just don’t know if anyone would actually pay attention.

Write a book–Currently have 4 but you need an audience before you pitch a trade book to a Publisher. So that one’s on hold.

Renovate a piece of shit house and film it–Lord I wish. Where are people finding these cheap houses and hoarder houses on auction for $25. Truly the dream but at least at this current moment it’s such an out of priced dream for me.

It feels like design is either something you can do if you have a bunch of money to throw into a house or the financial independence to have your own place, or friends that love you enough to let you design their homes. I just don’t have that and it feels like a never ending cycle of I’m never going to.

If we really think about it critically the only thing I can do is start blogging and start a podcast where only I’m the host and pray for the best.

Normally people have support from someone guiding them in a direction or saying what they should do and I don’t have a single person who’ll even notice. I know that everyone starts somewhere but I really don’t see how I can realistically do any of this.

I know at the end of the day it’s all just big excuses. It’ll work out somehow even if I don’t know how right now.

So much can change in a year but right now I feel so overwhelmed with this feeling of playing catch up. Like it would be better off if I had no goals and this was just a hobby that I expected nothing from. Then failed attempts would hurt a whole lot less.

I seriously just don’t know where to start. Somehow I’ve failed before I’ve even began and I hate the feeling of jealousy and anger I get when I watch people on YouTube doing it. I feel like the uncool kid in school, like I’m somehow less talented or able. Like my dreams are too big for what’s legitimately possible.

Honestly it feels like this will take a miracle and I don’t understand why out of everyone in the world, I’ve been given this skill and this strong vocational call. I think God forgot to include the details or sneezed and gave it to the wrong person. It feels like one big mistake.

I mean really is a SEO curated blog on how to pick the perfect shade of white paint, really going to do anything in helping me build an audience? Is anyone even going to notice if I blog about how to distribute color in a room? That doesn’t matter to most people.

People want to see beautiful spaces and connect to beautiful spaces. They’ll follow people who share pictures of pretty rooms but every room in this house doesn’t feel like it belongs to me. Even my own room is just a muddled mess of necessity over the design I’m actually drawn to. I hate every square inch of it and how none of it inspires me or makes me feel empowered. It’s just a space I’m stuck with.

And I don’t think people would connect with me struggling to make an awkward shaped room into something I’m proud of.

It makes me feel like my design skills are atrophying and I’m just getting worse and worse, eventually they’ll all be gone and somehow that’s my fault.

Inspiration is found in doing but there’s not much doing, just a lot of dreaming and frustration. It’s gotten to the point where I can’t even watch other people on Youtube making interior design content because I’m just so angry that I can’t.

Life is about dealing with the cards that you’ve been dealt but I feel like I’m a lousy Blackjack player and the dealer is kicking my ass. I’m just looking for an inch to fit myself into in hopes it manifests into something but every idea that I think to death just fails on me.

I’m just writing this as word vomit, maybe some self accountability since no one’s reading this anyways. But it’s an excuse to get words on a page in hopes that something I say sounds so ridiculous that I realize how stupid the excuse is. I keep typing in hopes that I’ll find that phrase and have yet to.

My life is kinda imploding in on itself because I’m not doing anything in the design world. Constant depression and anxiety is pulling at me, my focus in my actual 9-5 is non-existent and to say I’m lethargic is an understatement. I hardly can focus on reading a book or conversations I have. Things go in one ear and out the other and it’s hard to focus no matter how hard I try. I’m walking brain fog who feels constantly uninspired and exhausted. Truthfully my weekends are filled with more sleep than I’d like and I haven’t had an actual proper conversation with anyone in over a year. It seems that everyone just wants to talk about work or themselves, no one listens or really invites another into a conversation.

While I get on and off depression, I’m not sad. It’s just the state of my brain when it’s uninspired and bored. Honestly, I’m just bored. I’m so bored I thought a chance of scenery would help and booked a trip to Boston for a day and Maine for 3. I don’t even know what I’m looking for there, maybe just something to inspire me out of my hopelessness.

I hate being in a state of hopelessness. It was the environment I was raised in and I fought it my entire life. Always being a slightly too big dreamer with ambition and self belief larger than me. There’s not a single thing I think I can’t do. Except interior design, for whatever reason I just don’t have the space to design. Not my own, not my friends–I can only borrow other people’s and talk about them. That’s hardly fuel for someone who wants to be a designer.

No one’s gonna hire you because you can pinpoint what’s pretty in a video from Architecture Digest.

The truth is, I’m sitting around trying to brainstorm ideas because there has to be somewhere I can break into this. Some tiny little crack but I’m not seeing it and that already makes me feel like I’m a failure. It makes me feel self defeated and my whole life I fought against that mindset. I didn’t want to inherit the mindset of my family, but it seems to be winning and I hate that more than I hate anything.

I just don’t know where to go from here and I keep hoping some answer pops up.

That if I look hard enough I’ll see a tiny tiny crack.

There has to be something.

It can’t just be something I’m priced out of or lack access to.