DON’T CALL IT A COMEBACK

September — Truth Observation 002

I’ve been calling this my comeback.

Not publicly, necessarily. But somewhere in my head, that’s what this has been.

I’m coming back to writing.

Coming back to creating.

Coming back to The Posh Girls Club.

Coming back to the version of me who knew exactly what she was doing before life got complicated and I got distracted and tired and responsible and practical and whatever else happened along the way.

A comeback.

It sounds good.

Except I don’t think that’s what this is anymore.

LL Cool J said, don’t call it a comeback.

I’ve known that line for most of my life.

Turns out, I’m only just now understanding what he meant.

Because a comeback implies that you’re returning to someplace you’ve already been.

And I’m not.

That’s the part I think I’ve been getting wrong.

I spent so much time looking at what I built before and wondering how to get it back.

The audience.

The engagement.

The momentum.

The version of me who could post something and immediately watch people talk back.

There are numbers attached to that version of my life. Proof that it happened. Screenshots and followers and stories and opportunities and all these little digital receipts that say:

See? You were somebody here.

So naturally, when I decided to really create again, I started looking backward.

How do I get her back?

How do I get that audience back?

How do I get people talking again?

How do I make this feel like it used to?

And I think that might be one of the cruelest things we do to ourselves when we’re starting over.

We call it starting over.

But then we use our old life as the measuring stick.

I’m realizing I don’t actually want to rebuild what I had.

Because I’m not the woman who built it anymore.

She was brilliant.

She was funny.

She was creative as hell.

She knew how to make people pay attention.

And I love her for everything she built.

But she also didn’t know what I know now.

She hadn’t lived through what I’ve lived through.

She hadn’t had to lose things she thought were permanent.

She hadn’t learned the difference between being wanted and being valued.

She hadn’t learned that being really good at something doesn’t necessarily mean you have to keep doing it forever.

She hadn’t learned that sometimes the thing everyone applauds you for isn’t even the thing you want to be known for anymore.

And she definitely hadn’t learned that you can have almost a million people watching you and still eventually need to ask yourself:

Okay, but what do I actually want to say?

I know now.

Or at least, I’m getting closer.

And maybe that’s why this version feels slower.

I’m not just making content anymore.

I’m paying attention.

I’m writing things down.

I’m noticing patterns.

I’m questioning things I used to accept without question.

I’m building something that actually sounds like me instead of something designed to perform like me.

And sometimes that means I post something I love and the response isn’t what it would’ve been years ago.

That part is humbling.

Because my ego remembers.

She remembers what those numbers used to look like.

She remembers what instant validation feels like.

And every once in a while she taps me on the shoulder like:

Girl. Are we sure we still know how to do this?

And I have to remind her:

We’re not trying to do that anymore.

We’re trying to do this.

Whatever this becomes.

Maybe that’s the strange thing about reinvention.

At first, it can look a lot like failure.

The old things don’t work the same way.

The old audience doesn’t necessarily recognize you.

The old measurements stop making sense.

And there’s this uncomfortable stretch where you have enough history to know what success used to look like, but not enough evidence yet to know what this version of success will look like.

You’re somewhere in between.

Not who you were.

Not quite who you’re becoming.

Just… becoming.

And there is no dashboard for that.

No analytics page that tells you you’re 72% of the way to your next self.

You just have to keep going.

Which, for someone who likes proof, is incredibly inconvenient.

But I think I’m finally okay with it.

Because I don’t want my old life back.

I don’t want my old brand back.

I don’t even want the old version of me back.

I want to take everything she knew, everything she built, everything she survived, everything she got wrong—

and bring it with me.

There’s a difference.

I’m not returning to her.

I’m continuing from her.

So no.

Don’t call it a comeback.

I’ve been here for years.

I just haven’t been this woman before.

And I think I’d rather meet her than spend another minute trying to resurrect somebody I’ve already outgrown.

I'm not here to tell you what to think.

I'm just here to give you something to think about.