real talk: it’s been a rough couple of weeks

Friends, it’s been quite some time hasn’t it? [Like seriously, it’s been a minute.] A lot of things have been happening on my end, both personal and professional, so it’s been difficult to find time to come back and share with you. But I’m taking the time now to do exactly that.

A lot has also been going through my mind as of late, and I feel like there hasn’t been a good place for me to share all of those thoughts with you. So with that, I’d like to launch real talk. real talk will be a new corner on the blog for us to, well, talk. For some time now, I’ve wanted to create another place for conversation that sometimes doesn’t necessarily pair well with sartorial photos [I'm still figuring out what photos I can pair here!] And I want to make sure I'm being honest in representing all of my moments [not just the highlight reel.]

So here goes--sit back, pour yourself a warm cup of coffee [or tea if you’re like me- english breakfast preferably] because we’ve got a lot of catching up to do. I’ll pick up from when we last talked-right after I celebrated my birthday:

From the top, as I noted before, everyone in my marketing rotational program has been assigned their new teams. Since then, people have already started making their cross country moves to their new cities- in fact, two of my friends who were at my birthday dinner have since moved to LA and New York, and one more is on her way to London. It has been pretty hard feeling like a chunk of my community [family, really] is quite literally gone. [Shoutout to my roomies and boyfriend for holding me down though. They’ve been real ones.]

Next, I too started my new role- new team, new work, new desk, new manager, new…everything. And even though it’s still at YouTube, it quite literally feels like starting all over. I’ll admit that being the new kid on the block isn’t easy [or fun], especially when you really liked where you were before. And then, one week into my new role, we suffered the terrible tragedy at YouTube HQ. I won’t get too much into the details, but it was the first time I’ve experienced an active shooter situation. Admittedly, it has been a pretty difficult thing to work through [certain sounds or images that I’ve encountered multiple times before trigger the memory of that day.]

While I was taking the time to heal- being offline, working from home, etc- there was one assignment that was coming at me at 100 mph [shooting or not.] I was extended the awesome opportunity to present along with 4 other apmms to the Marketing org at Google’s annual business conference in Anaheim [eeep!]. As with any public appearance, it took multiple rounds of feedback and rehearsals.  In this particular case, it took about all of me to make sure that I got it right at a time when I seemingly didn’t have my all to give. Looking back now, I feel so grateful to have been included, and I’m simultaneously so happy for it to be over.

Having just returned to the office, now, my goal is to try to get back to a semblance of a routine.

Lastly, as if I didn’t have enough to keep me busy, about a month ago my dear friend (and now co-founder) and I launched other cards, an inclusive greeting card line. Our first collection features 6 cards--from periods to breakups to abortions. It’s been a project we’ve been working on for months prior, and I couldn’t be happier to see it come to the light. But handling the launch given everything I’ve written above has made it that much more difficult. Additionally, launch wasn’t a way to end work streams [as I had anticipated], instead it was where more work got added- trademarks, shipping logistics, and more. It’s been the most fulfilling, however, to hear from our customers how much this resonates with them. Thank you to all of you who have purchased cards, it means the world to me. And for those of you who haven’t already, you can keep up with everything that we’re up to on IG here.

With that, the first installment of real talk comes to an end. If you’ve made it this far-wow, shout out to you; you’re a real one. Thank you for reading [seriously.] If any of the above speaks to you, feel free to comment or drop me a line [you know how much I love hearing from you]. You will be able to find all real talks here.

Just tryna keep it real,

ro