i decided this summer deserved a second birthday - 06 01 - because somehow SO MUCH happened even while i mostly stayed inside (literally) STILL…..
last week i went home-home. Šiauliai. mum’s flat. alone. first time since i left for college that i stayed in those rooms without anger buzzing in my teeth. i sat with my grandma and I listened. her story isn’t mine to post, but it rewired something. generations before me lived inside one endless siren of survival. work-or-starve, hide-or-be-hurt. and suddenly i understood why the brand dissolved the second i stopped needing it as armour.
here’s the plot twist: realising their (and mine) pain didn’t drown me. it lit a fuse - hopeful, bright. i’m the first link in generations given actual freedom: child-free twenties, college, just a blank page. and yes I had to do most of it on my own, make my way by myself, but I had the FREEDOM to do all that, something no one that came before me had. i used to compare and think not enough, look at those other kids, look at the support they have, look how much money their parents invest in them. how angry and jealous it would make me. how wrong. i was already holding gold. i now see my family as vikings, people who gave me what none of them had, they did not have nothing even comparable to the freedom that I now hold and am able to share with others around me. how i wish i could give back to them. but I've decided that I will give back to them by living the most free life and giving freedom to as much people as I can through this business. and don't tell me to be REALISTIC OK, that is so cringe. i will never be realistic ever again.
after the last post i felt the usual overshare-hangover, but the DMs were real. actual stories, actually connecting. the fear i used to hold is becoming really little. might even go away completely soon???
back when the brand was climbing i never felt joy at anything good that would happen, only relief something was done and panic to start the next thing. from one external to the other. exhausting. the day we hit the milestone i’d prayed for, my body collapsed completely. she knew first: focus had to pivot inward - family, past, feelings, cell-soup.
turns out enough is a decision. i could’ve decided to choose innate worthiness at fourteen, twenty-two, yesterday. but you need tools + safety to choose it, and many never get it either. i’m grateful my body forced the lesson before turning 30.
i guess the reason i am writing all this, is because i know that so many are stuck in the same loop, i know that there are young people looking up to me and thinking that success looks like a growing business and celebrities wearing your designs, so i guess i’m trying to say, that it doesn’t give you anything of worth, if you’re doing your thing out of fear (whatever the fear is, the fear of not belonging, of not having money, of not seeming cool enough etc.) i really do not want to be another story on ig, who kids or my peers compare themselves to, i hate to think that i was ever that. but also this might just be natural for humans? but i really was able to break free from that, so maybe not?? i dunooo
girllssssss its a new era, new stakes. the brand will morph with me. might look like a stranger soon, I look like a stranger to myself 5 months ago. the ones who stay will stay for honest girlhood. little urte and teenage urte kept leaking into my work no matter how hard i tried to exile them - so i’m giving them the wheel fully now.
end of post two. maybe i’ll hit publish more often. terrifying to stand this naked online - and a little bit lovely to be seen.
xxxxxx
urte
