This Where My Head Is

Turning 30 felt like a deadline I had to beat—like if I didn't have everything figured out by then, I'd already failed. Spoiler: that's not how life works. Instead of launching the perfect version of my creative universe, I had to learn the difference between a goal and a dream, stop over-planning, and just start. This is the story of how I did it—pandemic, perfectionism, and one very bored three-year-old included.

I feel resentment from every direction. Even some homies are wearing expressions. I be discouraged from sharing my blessings.

Today, I turned 30. Yah! (But also, what the hell?)

Way back in January, when the world still made a little sense, I started playing with the idea of launching a Patreon—a place to finally share the ever-evolving, ever-expanding universe that's been living rent-free in my head for 18+ years. It is now June 12th, and I... kinda did that.

Between personal grief, unexpected growth, a global pandemic, and a very bored three-year-old who refuses to respect the sanctity of a closed bathroom door, I had to take several steps back and ask myself: Is this really what I want? And if it was, was I ready to do what it takes? I first had to accept that I couldn't do it all in one day.

I needed to stop trying to beat turning 30 and really focus on my plan if this was what I wanted to do. I needed to turn off all the voices in my head and only listen to one—Jack Harlow. (Stay with me.)

Somewhere in there is a lesson.

For a long time, I truly believed that if I just worked hard enough, planned perfectly enough, executed flawlessly enough, I could wake up on my birthday feeling like a fully realized version of myself. Accomplished. Launched. Complete. Turns out, that's not how life works.

At the time, I didn't have the language for it, but I was wrestling with more than just creative perfectionism—I was also navigating major depressive disorder and anxiety. I've spent most of my life daydreaming, maladaptive daydreaming—losing hours, sometimes days, building entire worlds in my head while real life blurred in the background. The idea of launching my creative universe felt almost too real because, in my mind, it already existed. I had seen every version of it play out perfectly.

But thinking about a thing and actually doing it? That's where the lines started to blur. I had spent years convincing myself that I just needed the right moment, the right conditions, the right version of me—not realizing that the work wasn't about chasing perfection. It was about embracing reality and finding a way to move forward anyway.

Of course, I knew it wasn't going to happen overnight. I am a 30-year-old black woman from North Chicago, Illinois, who's been in the house since December, and building a world—let alone sharing it—was going to take more than just a deadline. It would take patience, discipline, and the ability to silence the voices in my head that told me it wasn't good enough. This was going to take work, but most importantly, time.

So I got to work.

Got a career, and I'm very invested.

With my sister's help, I put a real plan together. I killed some darlings, set some goals, and mapped out a schedule. I signed up for Patreon, rebranded my socials, built a website, and organized my entire creative graveyard of unfinished stories. And let me tell you—I seriously underestimated the time.

The time it would take to sort through 18+ years of unfinished work.

The time I needed to understand the difference between a goal and a dream.

The time it takes to actually create something, not just plan for it.

And then I woke up on my 30th birthday.

The day I had planned to launch my universe with a series of interconnected short stories that would follow a cast of characters from adolescence into adulthood, then be re-released in limited collections threading new connections, all woven into a single, larger narrative. Confused? Good. Because that's exactly how I felt in January—overwhelmed. Then I took the time.

It should have been simple.

But it wasn't.

Some people call it a scary obsession. I like to call it a passion.

Because for 18+ years, I have lived in this magical world I've been dying to share. And since I'm a creative (and I'm sensitive about my sh*t), it's too easy for me to keep it locked away. But NO MORE.

No more excuses.

No more final tweaks.

No more spending weeks refining a single detail for some epic launch that, let's be honest, was always a moving target.

This isn't about waiting for some perfect moment to be ready. This is a reminder that things don't have to be perfect to be in motion. That you don't need permission to step into what's already yours. This is about opening the door and inviting people in—letting them see the process, the passion, and the sheer audacity it takes to bet on yourself. That sometimes, you just have to hit publish and let it be messy.

So, no, I don't have a perfectly packaged 16-story collection to "drop" on my birthday. And I may not be able to say that I'm a published author. But I can say I launched a universe while no one was watching.

If you're rocking with it, welcome. If not, that's cool—pass it to a friend who might.

Either way, I'm here.

I'm writing.

I'm building.

And I'm just getting started.

WHAT'S POPPIN.