Welcome to the messy middle
Pretty things for garbage people
Five years ago, my husband and I moved to a farm in rural Wisconsin. Thinking that that alone would be enough for me to become an ✨influencer✨ - I did what all millennials do when they make a big life transition…I changed my Instagram handle. At first it was “ourwisconsinfarm.” I quickly realized that 1) it takes a lot more than a handle update to gain followers and 2) even though we lived on a farm, suddenly changing my entire identity to be about a property I owned was not only limiting, but not at all representative of who I am. I knew literally nothing about owning a farm, and while I would’ve loved my arc to be that of the modern day Green Acres, my freelance design work quickly picked up and I preferred making green to plowing the acres.
I then had an identity crisis for the ages. If everyone thinks I’m a farmer now, what are my HUNDREDS of followers going to think when they find out I’m using the hashtag #farmlife but really I’m just sitting inside my house on my computer all day? What are they going to think when they find out I’m not actually milking my goat Mac, but I AM eating store bought Mac n Cheese? Instead of learning the rules of the roost, I am busy watching the latest episode of Vanderpump Rules. Instead of riding a Wisconsin tractor, I’m tracking changes on a Powerpoint deck for some investor in New York. The contradictions killed me (and my first 8 chickens thanks to an aggressive raccoon) and I felt like an imposter.
Back to the drawing board. What is a handle that can represent this new journey I’m on, while also representing what I do most of the day? That’s when FarmAndFlourish was born.
And while I am aware that, literally no one cares, ever since then I’ve been self-conscious about that handle. It sounds like a bad boutique in Minnetonka that sells rustic wooden signs that say “Farm Fresh Eggs” in terrible script fonts. But I’ve ran with it, because it does represent my life in a pretty succinct way, and, as I mentioned, literally no one cares.
As I’ve been writing more, especially since giving birth to my son 9 months ago, I’ve been yearning for a place to compile my thoughts. I’ve also been desperate for a clearer sense of identity, after having to abandon a lot of what makes me, me, while I settled into motherhood. A friend of mine recommended Substack, and while I thought it was perfect, I came here again wondering how to represent myself.
It’s probably obvious from the above, but especially since moving to the farm, I’ve felt a profound sense of imposter syndrome - insecurity about who I am, where I belong, what I actually represent, and how to best fit myself into a box. I’ve always been a bit of a contradiction… I got along better with the boys growing up but hated sports. I love deep conversation but thrive on surface-level reality TV gossip. I have a profound understanding and appreciation for classic music (my dad is a musician) but love jamming out to top 40 songs in the car with my mom. I was on a very competitive dance team but was also in the school band and loved math. As a designer, I love making things beautiful, but I hate the time and effort that goes into making me “beautiful.”
And the contradictions continue. There are a lot of stereotypes that come with living on a farm, especially as a younger person living on a farm in the modern age. I don’t garden. I don’t ride horses. I do wear overalls but the ones I own are from ABERCROMBIE. I don’t bake my own bread. I mean, I tried but it was not good so I just found someone who made it better and I buy it from them. And if they’re not available then I’m not afraid of a bag of Texas Toast or King’s Hawaiians.
So when thinking about naming this space, I tried to think back to why I liked the word “Flourish,” besides the obvious cutesy alliteration with the word farm. I knew it intimately in the design sense and did like the juxtaposition of a rugged farm life with a beautiful, ornamental one. I then Googled the definition and it was like the God above (that I don’t believe in) handed me the definitions on a thrifted silver platter.
Flourish (verb)
grow or develop in a healthy or vigorous way, especially as the result of a particularly favorable environment.
Flourish (noun)
a bold or extravagant gesture or action, made especially to attract the attention of others.
an instance of suddenly performing or developing in an impressively successful way.
If you know me, you know I love a good transformation. I’m sure it started back in the days of watching Extreme Makeover Home Edition with my parents as we ate mashed potatoes with corn on TV trays every Sunday. I also owned a copy of a few episodes of Trading Spaces on DVD that I watched on repeat. My love for a visual evolution quickly became an obsession with transforming my body as I developed an Eating Disorder Lite™️ post college. Once I bought my own home, I became my own Paige Davis (sans flippy haircut) and loved making over the rooms in my house using thrifted finds and lots of spray paint. Now I spend my days refreshing company brand languages, my very own form of digital before and afters.
I am always striving to be better, to make things prettier, whether it’s in a literal or more figurative sense. I’m constantly trying to curate a more favorable environment for me, and those around me, to thrive, to flourish. And yes, I like to wave around and share the news when something works.
I never felt like I fit into traditional wellness spaces. I’ve always been a “bigger boned” gal (as they liked to say to me in elementary school) and I love an underbaked Tollhouse cookie (or 5). Although I had my wellness culture moments, it was never a space I felt particularly accepted. The Body Positivity movement felt more right, but I still never really found myself loving my size no matter how many pictures I posted bent over grabbing my rolls and laughing. And as I’ve learned more about privilege and white feminism, I realize it’s probably not a space I even belonged in to begin with.
I never felt like I fit into traditional design spaces either. As far as graphic design goes, I felt like the odd kid out because I knew close to nothing about art history and wasn’t a big fan of drawing. I taught myself Photoshop at age 11 because I wanted to create blended images of my favorite contestants on American Juniors (an American Idol spinoff for kids that aired for one entire season). To this day, I can tell you every font on the restaurant menu but don’t you dare ask me to name a famous artist. Also, the level of finesse and high-quality photography that is associated with most design spaces is intimidating. Nothing about me is refined. I’m crass, I swear a lot, and I often leave leftovers out on the counter and still eat them the next day.
I don’t say any of this for pity, I’m incredibly privileged and have had a happy, relatively simple life. Even though I didn’t fit neatly into these random boxes I still found my ways to thrive. I just always yearned for a simple way to define myself in the way all of those 2016 Girl Boss influencers did. You know the vibe, “Wife, Mommy, Interior Design Fanatic, Follower of Christ, Lover of Mac n Cheese.”
I kept coming back to this question, “is it possible to love pretty things and still be a trash person?” Because I want both.
I liked the word flourish because it represented all of it. It’s about beauty, success, and evolution. In that way, it’s aspirational. But it also means to be bold and extravagant. I don’t half-ass anything, and usually that means anything I’m doing is messy and imperfect and loud and colorful and all over the place. The way my brain, and this post, is.
So, welcome to Flourish, where life thrives in the messy middle. Where deep life revelations coincide with reality TV reflections, elegant nursery designs intersect with blunt thoughts about motherhood, and farm-fresh eggs meet fast food. Nothing is perfect here, but I’m always making progress on something. And I can’t wait to share my thoughts along the way.