WTH Is Up Life Update

You know what I can’t do? I can’t come back from a year-plus blog hiatus and not tell you what has actually been going on in my life for the last year. There’s a lot of ground to cover, so I’m going to go category by category.

Career

The summer of 2018 tried me in ways I never could have seen coming. In July of ‘18, I decided to come to a full stop with my social media career. Although I was excited to figure out what was next for me, it was hard to leave behind eight-plus years in a field I’d worked very hard to be a part of. I realize it’s a privilege to be able to come to a full stop and take a break, so I’m hesitant to share what it was really like for me, but I’m going to go right ahead because not sharing would be not telling my truth.

I had some of the most depressed days of my life following July. Days I felt like I couldn’t get out of bed. Days when I couldn’t arrange the muscles in my face into a smile. Days when I felt like my life was going nowhere and it was all my own doing. It wasn’t just days, either. The lows kept coming for months, often out of nowhere or after having a really good day. I felt like a failure to myself and to my family (although they never expressed anything like that).

I spent a lot of time and did a lot of personal work to overcome these lows. My identity was so strongly tied to my definition of success that I didn’t know how to function. At 30, what did it mean that I no longer was fully independently financially stable? What did it mean that when people asked me, “What do you do?” that I had no answer? What did it mean about me that I wasn’t working around the clock or working toward anything?

I had to dismantle my definition of success. I had to teach myself how to untangle my self-worth from being directly tied up with what my job was and how much money I was making. It was hard with all the “hustle,” “work hard,” and glorification of busy-ness we see on social media all the time, especially because I’d previously believed in all of it.

It wasn’t until January of 2019 when I started to recover from these lows and really detach myself from these old ideas of myself. I worked through The Artist’s Way. I listened to a shit-ton of Super Soul Sunday. I read a lot. I wrote a lot. I tuned out anything that didn’t serve my soul or pique my curiosity. I signed up for vocal lessons. I observed an acting class. I almost had to go through a process of elimination by trying everything first. The process and the work started in January and it hasn’t stopped since. As anyone with mental health struggles knows, it takes constant, persistent work. It’s like working out any muscle— you have to keep working to see progress.

While all this was going on, I started to work for Hi-Lo Liquor Market in Culver City a couple days a week starting in November of ‘18. I loved the store so much that I wanted to be a part of it, plus I really wanted to meet people outside my social circles. It started to give my weeks some semblance of structure again while allowing me to connect with people face-to-face. I became the Market Buyer in late July, which means I curate our snack offerings...#snackface dream come true. I also started to take on writing projects as a freelance copywriter over the past year. It was almost as if the less pressure I put on my career, the more my career sector started to open up.

I was still waffling between some career decisions and then two events happened in 2019. First, Zach and I went to Boston for a film festival in March. It was during this film festival it came with great clarity to me that I needed to focus on writing. I admired all the work I saw on the screens but most importantly was in awe that a concept can be written and then turned into something physical. I signed up for a UCLA Extension creative writing class immediately after that trip.

Then, in June, I went home to Ohio for my brother’s wedding (which was LOVELY and so sweet and I cried and was a happy mess). Over dinner with just Zach and my parents post-wedding, my dad started talking about how both my brother and I have a certain energy and power to us, and that one of us had learned to use it and the other hadn’t. It wasn’t until a few minutes into the conversation I realized I was the one who hadn’t learned to use it. Although it was a tough pill to swallow, it launched me into action.

I had been contemplating becoming a health coach via the Institute of Integrative Nutrition ever since 2018, and I finally made the decision to just go for it. (Actually, fun fact, I first looked into the school in 2010, right after I graduated college.) When I got back to LA after that trip home, I contacted the school and signed up for the soonest session possible. I also signed up for the advanced course, which means I’ll graduate in six months instead of the usual one-year course.

What I want more than anything is to help women become their definition of healthiest, happiest, most confident selves. I want to be able to help women through their trying times and be able to guide them to their truth. Throughout every iteration of SnackFace over the last 10 years, what I’ve loved the most is the connection with others, and I’m most honored when people reach out to me to tell me the ways I’ve helped simply by showing my life. Now I’ll have the actual tools to help people, one-on-one.

Now for the next doozie…

House

Zach and I started construction on our house in October 2018. While we were off on our honeymoon, our team knocked down the wall of the galley kitchen, moved the downstairs bathroom from the middle of the room to under the stairs, and started to build our dream kitchen. We lived in the construction from October to January, when we were tracking ahead of schedule to finish. We were thrilled we were going to be able to host a Super Bowl/housewarming party. Then Los Angeles saw the worst rain it had seen in years…

Black mold popped up on our fresh, brand-new drywall. Water dripped through the ceiling above the front door. Walls surrounding the windows were soaked. How was this possible? Where was it coming from? What we discovered was that almost all of the windows and French doors in the house leaked and had probably been leaking for years. Our project had to come to a stop in order to deal with the next phases.

First up: mold remediation. We had to be out of the house for 8-10 business days in order for this to happen. Then, we had someone come look at the windows. Much to our horror, when the house was renovated in 1989, NONE of the windows had been waterproofed. NONE OF THEM. We also discovered leaks and cracks in the outer stucco of the house. Additionally, water wasn’t properly draining from the rooftop.

What started as a simple kitchen renovation quickly morphed into a much, much bigger project. At the start of this summer, we ordered our windows and doors, and planned for phase two to start at the end of August.

On August 20th, we packed up a few suitcases and headed out. As I write this, it’s October 20th, and we’re still living out of those suitcases. Thanks to enormously gracious friends, Airbnbs, and hotels, we have been bopping all around the west side.

I’ve learned a lot about myself during this process, much of which I’ll get into in another post, but for now I’ll leave you with this: I definitely will not be the next Joanna Gaines.

Relationships & Friendships

There are some phases of life you really can’t get through without your partner and friends, and this last season has definitely been one of them. I also think nothing tests a marriage like buying a house, let alone renovating a house and living through all the iterations of construction. I would never, EVER, EVER be able to get through this with anyone else but Zach. He is always cool, calm, collected, and patient, where I am heated, annoyed, frustrated, and impatient. He helps calm me down and balances me out without any judgment or stifling of my emotions. My very definition of home has been turned on its head for over a year now, and I don’t mean to sound so cringey and cheesy, but Zach is my home.

Maintaining as much of a normal social life as I possibly can during this time has also helped. I love all my friends so much and they’ve kept me afloat (even if they don’t know it!). Muffin never tires of my “what am I doing with my life?!?!?! Can I just vent for a second?!” texts and calls.

Food & Exercise

My relationship with food has never been better, and I think a lot of that has to do with having very little control over it right now. I am going to write a whole post about this, so stay tuned!

For workouts, I’m still very focused on my U Beautiful Soul plan. I love it SO much. I feel stronger all the time. If I ever feel a little bit of burnout, I either take a break from working out entirely (I love to take a week off here and there…every couple months or so) or take a week of classes at the gym.

Another thing that happened when we were in Boston is that we were there during the marathon. We talked to a couple of marathoners and I was really inspired that these people can run 26.2 miles. While I have no plans on ever running a marathon (or even a half), it inspired me to become a better, more educated runner. When we got back to LA in April, I started at square one with running. I started simply: run one minute, walk one minute, for 30 minutes. I worked my way up: run two minutes, walk one minute; run three minutes, walk one minute; and so on. I now can confidently run 30 minutes without stopping, and I never thought I’d be able to do that! I love using Aaptiv to track my runs and give me more structure. I tend to run 2-3 times a week now, switching it up between tempo, interval, and endurance runs.

Mental Health

To circle back to the start of this post, I rarely have those depressed days anymore. I know they’ll happen every now and then, and I’m OK with that. But ever since I started writing more and made the decision to do IIN and become a health coach, I’ve felt unstoppable. I feel like I am finally on my path. I’m on my way to doing what I’m meant to do, and it feels damn good.

Thanks for reading!

Much love,
Kailey