Especially in the Middle of All of This

Some days I have it. Some days I don't. Both are allowed.

It’s 3 a.m., and I’m awake again, pumping. My daughter is sleep but my body maintains a newborn schedule. The plan is to sleep when she sleeps, and I should be sleeping, especially now that I only pump 3 times a day. But I decided to pick up small creative projects and find myself up tending to client work or mindlessly scrolling. The creative projects aren’t the problem; it’s the scrolling. By the time I put my phone down, an hour has passed, and I feel depleted. Feeds full of unfiltered opinions, unregulated emotions, disdain, and grief. Now I’m mad at myself for wasting time when I could have been sleeping. I saw the silence as a moment to feel like myself again, mindless, until I realized it drained me more than having no time for myself.

Postpartum was a reckoning of years in the making.

Moving to Texas was a pitstop for rest. It was an opportunity to deconstruct erroneous beliefs inherited from culture and church. A space for me to be with myself and then my husband, to create a new paradigm that God wanted to teach us, where ambition isn’t front and center, and application is a necessary skill. The accolades hold no weight anymore, and the accomplishments mean nothing when you’re the only one having to endure the microaggressions embedded in a culture of no accountability.

We’re taught early to go after the bag and climb these ladders.

I decided early, I would not.

A year ago, I shut down my business. Offboarded clients. Stopped taking on new projects and redirected inquiries to other creatives whose work speaks for itself. I was a few weeks away from giving birth, and design had left a bad aftertaste in my mouth. Finally, after years of tug-of-war with my desires, I laid down design with no next in sight, aside from focusing on becoming the best mother my daughter needs me to be. Some days felt like failure. And I believe postpartum exacerbated that. I’ve learned that failure isn’t truly failure until you stop. Lying it down was an act of surrender. God knows best. Motherhood was my focus. And I have pages of notes and a collection of stories waiting for when it’s time to keep building. Each day, I am one step closer, even if it doesn’t feel like active participation.

It was while helping a friend launch her community platform that something clicked. I realized I have something to say to the women who need it. I have to be confident in what I have to offer and the wisdom God has given me.

This is for my daughter.

I don’t want her to spend her life being twice as good just to be half as recognized. I don’t want her exhausting herself climbing ladders that were never built with her in mind. She can build her own table. Forget the ladders.

I’ve been thinking about what I don’t want her to carry as I find solace in the obscurity of this season. It’s not as bad as it seems when faced against the idea of striving that social media drills into us. Obscurity is rest. A place to be unknown without stress if we allow it. The problem for me is what people see. It’s an unspoken pressure when people see possibility in you, it’s almost like the disappointment they don’t speak out loud can creep in and make us feel behind because of projected potential.

We have to really sit with ourselves and God to know that it’s his timeline, not ours. I am learning to close the laptop and feel good about it. To put the phone down and feel poured out in the right way, not drained by what I consumed, but emptied by what I gave. That I showed up. That I stewarded the time well. Even at 3 a.m. Even in the middle of all of this.

Especially in the middle of all of this.

Some days are better than others. In order to build anything, we have to keep going. Even if that means sitting it down for a little while to focus elsewhere. It’s all a continuation.

You’ll circle back wiser,
Janae Carlee

P.S. As I wrote this, I was on the edge of self-doubt, a few seconds away from self-sabotaging and not posting this letter. Then a friend sent me this DM on Instagram:

God's timing is best. May this encourage you to keep showing up even if the little voice in your head is taunting you to quit. Someone needs what you have, and that's the point.