Meanwhile, It’s Not Nothing
I launched Meanwhile in January, and since then, 324 people have found their way here.
Most of you came from Facebook. A few of you type the URL directly, which still feels strangely intimate. One post crossed 100 views. Several others didn’t.
Eight of you have subscribed. It’s clearly not explosive and most certainly not viral, but it isn’t nothing either. Eight is small enough to feel personal, like I could name you, remember you, and notice if one of you disappeared.
What the graph can’t show is what this blog is being built inside of.
It can’t show the multi-million-dollar quota sitting on my desk while I draft something thoughtful between commercial strategy calls. It can’t show me reworking slides in the lobby of a Residence Inn in Boston/Waltham in January, coat still on, knowing I’d present them in the morning. I got less than four hours of sleep that night and still somehow squeezed in publishing “I Hate Boston.”
It doesn’t show three large dogs at my feet during conference calls, my finger hovering over mute in case they decide the grass is growing too fast and require immediate commentary. It doesn’t show my Dexcom blood sugar alerts interrupting sentences or the constant mental math of insulin dosing humming quietly under everything.
It doesn’t show a husband still grieving his father while stepping into fatherhood himself, quietly trying to become the kind of dad his father was, all while navigating chronic back pain and years of disability uncertainty. Nor does it show the quiet recalibration that happens when someone close to you receives a diagnosis and nothing feels quite as stable as it did before.
All of that sits in the background of our ordinary days.
In May, Jimmy and I will celebrate four years of marriage, two days after our daughter turns three. We’re not newlyweds anymore, but we’re not seasoned either. Parenting is in full swing, and marriage is still becoming in the middle of everything else.
Some weeks our life feels like The Fast and the Furious, just with more laundry and fewer stunt doubles. Other weeks, it feels unmistakably clear that we would not have survived without our village.
That tension between speed and support is constant.
We were supposed to go to Epcot this Saturday. Our toddler chose Garden Grill to celebrate potty training, and it was all lined up. It was a small thing, but it felt earned and orderly in a season that doesn’t always feel that way. Then an opportunity popped up at the last minute to host an after-church potluck for a former worship band member who happened to be back in town.
So we bumped Disney.
Because sometimes becoming isn’t about sticking to the plan; it’s about opening the door when someone shows up. That’s part of the spiritual layer. It isn’t about branding it or packaging it or being so loud that you turn someone off who might have been saved. It’s about quietly choosing people over convenience and trusting that obedience in small moments still matters.
And by bumping the trip, something interesting happened: we created runway — more bandwidth and more margin.
Instead of scrambling the night before, I had space to actually style two full family Disney bounds: Land Ariel in linen and my custom-made wedding Converse, or Ursula in black and Cole Haans. Not because I had to, but because I had room. And apparently, when I have room, I create.
It’s 1:18 a.m. as I write this. I started around 12:30 am, which is usually when I fit it all in, between researching sensory processing sensitivity because Haisley may or may not have it, placing a Thrive Market order, and realizing again that we are almost out of cat food.
Tonight, the compromise is that I’ll publish in the morning, because this is the margin. [Reality check: It’s 5:54 p.m. the next day. “Publish in the morning” felt optimistic at 1:18 a.m.]
People are reading. They’re just quiet. I understand that, because I read quietly too. But if you’re here, if something has resonated, if you’ve felt the tension of building something while everything else is happening, I’d love to know.
Comment. Vote Ariel or Ursula. Subscribe.
Not for ego, but for signal.
Meanwhile, I’ll keep writing between the insulin math, the cat food inventory, tomorrow’s calendar, and whatever pivot shows up next.