Episode 1: The Truth of Where I am At

How do I still feel like a rough draft?

Now that you’ve gotten to know me through these essays, it’s time to start documenting my life in real time, living as it happens. So here goes: what’s actually happening as I try to figure out how to be a real person, not someone chasing the algorithm.

Yesterday, I ran into someone I’d gone out with who once tried to hand-feed me an oyster on Christmas. “Oh… is that for me?” I asked, not realizing what was happening. He looked at me like I’d failed a pop quiz in seduction. Humiliating in the way only oysters can be. Sometimes, when I can’t sleep at night, I think maybe I should have just eaten the oyster.

But one of the rules on my new list of life is simple: no more crumbs. So when oyster guy followed up with an 11:14 p.m. “u up?” text after Balthazar, I hit delete without hesitation. See, universe? I’m showing you what I don’t want.

I haven’t had an apartment for eight months. It’s embarrassing to even type that out, but here we are. I poured every dollar into my startup. This week, I dragged a TV to the curb, opened boxes I’d been avoiding, and finally carved out enough floor to stand. A sublet isn’t glamorous, but standing in that tiny patch of cleared space, I actually exhaled. Sometimes progress is just… room to breathe.

On Instagram, I’ve posted the dinners, the dresses, the glossy angles that show I have it together. The reality? Taking a “mental health walk” because the only thing I could do for progress was walk. Sacrificing my apartment to keep the company alive. Most of the founders I know are doing the same, consulting on the side, pretending online it’s all working. We act like if we can just keep up the image, the reality will catch up. It is a privilege to go into debt for something you chose, but privilege doesn’t make it less brutal. Almost no one shows their real life or admits, mid-hustle, that their personal life is unraveling.

I’m not writing this as an obituary for my company. BODY is still here, moving into phase 2, evolving in ways I’ll share soon. But the cost of keeping it alive hasn’t just been financial, it’s been mental, physical, emotional. And that’s the part no one likes to post about.
For nine years I’ve been building startups, telling myself that once I crossed some imaginary finish line, then I could finally live. In the process, I skipped boyfriends, skipped experiences, skipped presence. I’ve been waiting for life to start, and it never did. Even with companies still alive, I need an identity outside of work. I need to actually live my life, not just build toward it. That starts this week.

I used to live on possibility, the clouds I thought would carry me somewhere. Now daylight cuts through the blinds and shows me exactly where I am: staring into the broken ultrafragola mirror I can’t seem to throw away. My brain scrolls even when my phone is off. Possibility hasn’t disappeared; it just feels less sparkly. More expensive. More uncertain.

A couple days ago, in a Joe Dispenza meditation, something shifted. My body usually twitches, my brain rehearses worst-case scenarios. But this time, it was still. The spiral cut off mid-thought. I got up feeling… resolved. Like I could actually walk into the world differently.

Can I actually change my story?

When I look in my cracked mirror I don’t see the person I want to be. Entrepreneurs, artists, anyone who’s ever risked something knows the cycle. But this doesn’t feel like another round of hustle and collapse. It feels bigger. Maybe because of my age. Maybe because I put everything I had into the wrong places. Maybe because this time, it’s not about rebuilding. It’s about living as the person I want to be.

The strange gift of rock bottom is freedom. All of my worst fears happened, and I’m still here.

And yet, learning to live has its own strange levity. One task at a time: delete a text, sell a couch, write an essay, record a draft. The list of what excites me is finally beginning to expand: launching my podcast, growing this Substack, telling my story in a way that feels human rather than performative.

On Friday, shame followed me into the coffee shop. I ordered an iced coffee and swore the barista could see straight through my bank account. Shame is invisible, but it hangs heavy like a bad perfume only I can smell. My therapist says it’s the lowest vibration on the chart. But maybe it’s also a compass, pointing me toward what I need to face.

The truth is, the happiest I’ve felt in a long time is writing these essays. It feels like the thing I was supposed to be doing along my journey, being completely vulnerable and saying the things most people hide.

Maybe my living is a kind of performance art. My feed is a highlight reel of wins, but I thrive in showing the mess, the stuff that isn’t shiny. I spent too long pretending I was shiny. I’m done with that.

Sometimes I picture my thirteen-year-old self, braces, spiral notebook, certain she was destined for something. She’d be proud to know I’m still writing. Even here, cross-legged on the floor of a half-furnished sublet, surrounded by boxes I can’t quite unpack.

Maybe I’m finally writing for her.

I don’t know how to change my story yet, but I do know I’ll be here again next week, writing it down.

somehow, functioning,
Jilly