I feel like I’m very easily inspired and I think it might be because I romanticize everything in life. When I lived in New York City I would leave my shift at Soul Cycle, go to Bluestone Lane and get a Golden Latte ($$$) and then I would just walk.
For so many miles and so many hours.
Sometimes still wearing my bright yellow Soul Cycle long sleeve waffle shirt.
I would listen to my favorite music, usually Bon Iver or Gregory Allen Isakov and pretend like something dramatic but beautiful had just happened to me.
Romanticize.
I would listen to movie scores and broadway soundtracks and based on the timeline of this memory, it was the soundtrack to Dear Evan Hansen.
Sometimes I’d think about movies and love stories and then before I knew it I was floating back uptown to East 78th street. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. I’m not sure why this story was the first thing I thought to write here. Maybe it was nostalgia? I just spent a week in NYC for work. Maybe I was just reminiscing on the drastic inspiration brought on by the memory of city sights and lavish neighborhood walks meeting the lackluster reality of being that 22 year old girl living in a city she couldn’t wait to get out of. So much so that I would would walk over 60 blocks to bring my sister a treat at her office in Soho rather than sit in my apartment and go through the motions of pretending like I’d miss any of this after my college graduation. I fear I’m not making much sense here, but hopefully you’re still reading. I asked my boyfriend a few days ago how I should start my Substack journey, and he told me to write down all my ideas and go from there. I forgot to do that, and here I am just talking in circles.
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I think I’m left feeling uninspired here because I feel like I’ve been here a million times before.
Uninspired (for now) (but I want to be here!!!)
A digital reinvention of myself in a way. Let’s walk down memory lane shall we?
Where should we start?
There was something on Wordpress when I was abroad. Uh oh I forget the blog name! (maybe ‘You’re Only Emily Once’) idk!
There was a food blog… I’ll never forget The Hungry Brunettes.
There was my byline at my internship where I wrote about “Fun Date Ideas for You and Your Valentine!” while I sat in bed, asleep by 9pm for my 5am Soul Cycle shift.
There was a whole (gulp, hides) Odyssey collection of words I wrote in college. IYKYK (and I’m sorry if you do).
There was/is Emily in Good Company — Ohhhhh she wears many hats. She’s been a portfolio of social media clients, a collection of short stories, a semi food blog, then I realized history was repeating itself and I started fresh, she was a travel diary in 2018, she’s been a place where I highlighted creative women that inspired me, and now she’s dormant but I’m always thinking. Whatever she may become one day I am always rooting for her. I started to rely heavily on Emily in Good Company in 2020 when quite literally, Emily needed company. So did the rest of the world. During the loneliest time of my life I found connection with people. I was having conversations with them and hearing their stories when most people were afraid to swap conversation germs. More on that later. Like I said, she’s dormant not extinct.
Oh and now there’s also Golden Hour Framed which is my newest baby. Just a fun outlet. Almost ready to launch.
So maybe I haven’t felt inspired here because I feel exhausted of “reinvention”. I say that lightly because maybe that’s too heavy of a word for this. Maybe it’s just the invisible pressures of being a human these days. The need to be this pillar of inspiration simply to feel like you’re keeping up with it all. So maybe it’s comparison that I’m having a hard time with. I think reinvention comes from the inevitable act of comparison. And that’s something I try to not do. But comparison brings inspiration. I mean clearly it does, it got me here. So what’s the opposite of all this?
Reflection?
Contentment?
Who knows. But this felt good to write.
I’ll be back when I make more sense! xx
iMi at max volume will do the trick
create, rework, rinse, repeat.