I have to be honest...

I’ve been terrified to email you. And I miss you <3

Moorea Seal

Sep 19, 2022

I have to be honest, I’ve been terrified to email you.

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Click above to listen to my audio version of this newsletter.

If you are reading this now, it means you are one of the many lovely people who follows me on social media, shopped in my Seattle based store front, or online at mooreaseal.com which is currently in transition to becoming my portfolio site/digital shop. In this weekly Past|Present|Future email, expect stories, links to resources: sources of comfort, hope and inspiration, new products I’ve created, stuff I’m loving and more.

But for today, let’s just catch up.

PAST:

My huge storefront in Seattle, WA came to a close in July of 2020 and despite what you may assume, it was a big tear filled relief. A chapter filled with panic attacks and fake smiles, stamps of approval from the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow to Oprah Winfrey, 70 hour work weeks and incessant newness all met it’s end. The stress, the grappling to embody the identity that was demanded of me as a “successful woman in business,” the hours spent feeling like I had locked myself away in a shiny cage of my own doing, it stopped with an aggressive halt.

But the fear didn’t end with the store closing, its severed limbs returned to the earth while it’s beastly body grew new unnamable tools of torment. I began to wake up to the abuse I had endured within my own business by choosing to remain in a 7 year long business partnership with a truly wounded, anti-feminist, money-hungry person. He was an internal opposition to everything I wanted my company to be, and for some reason, empathy told me to keep trying with him, no matter when pains arose. My naive hope of being a helper, that love could conquer all, led me to deepen wounds I am still seeking to heal. Amidst so much hope and love that my sweet staff and I sought to fill that space with, toxicity still oozed through the cracks. No amount of fresh new concrete layers can hold together a crumbling foundation.

During those first dark months of the pandemic, I put my storefront on pause and threw myself into research and writing for 52 Lists for Bravery. As with each of my 52 Lists guided list making journals, I wrote for my own needs partnered with what I felt society at large was yearning for. I needed to be brave, not just in facing the pandemic but in ending a toxic business partnership with a man I legally cannot name, in closing the business I defined myself by, and in simultaneously getting divorced from the fluffy hair boy from high school who became my husband; a good man, a kind man, and a man on an opposing life track from my own. I was in the ultimate break up hell scape, two partnerships ending at once, waking to my own queerness and an Autism diagnosis, while desperately seeking to find a new place to call home in a world shut down. Paralleled with the world’s own unraveling, I was on track to blow up my life. There was no other option. After 3+ intense years of private struggle, grappling with identity and safety, and weekly sessions with a therapist who would tell me, “You know what is inevitable. It’s up to you to decide when you finally say no,” I said it out loud, I’m done.

PRESENT:

My home decor book Make Yourself at Home, a reminder to be true to you not just in aesthetic, but heart and mind.

I live life like an open book. It’s in my nature. But in some ways, I have to be vague about what I went through in business because from 2020 to the beginning of 2022, I was in a legal battle that broke my heart, my personal and professional drive, and any sense of hope I once held. There are things I legally am not allowed to talk about, which aids in the slow progression of moving on emotionally. The grief has felt like a million little sparks lighting my skin on fire, like someone gave me a lobotomy leaving parts of my mind inaccessible, like the world’s biggest bean bag is bearing down on my chest. I don’t crave the entirety of the life I once had. In truth, I want so little of it, it’s easy to say goodbye to a past self formed and forged for society’s pleasure. I am clearer now, so much more aligned with the self I was when I was younger. In my twenties, drinking every drop of what pre-pandemic culture gave us, I craved the accrual of more; more recognition, accolades, work and responsibility. In the words of a woman I once shamed and I now see as a hero, Britney once said “Gimme gimme more,” a narrative I now look at in disgust, as I am sure the one and only Britney Spears does too. I don’t want more, I want what is right and true.

In my own epic repeated declaration of “NOs,” I finally became the hero I needed, I see that now. I embodied the care giver who doesn’t give a fuck what you do, rather loves you as you are. And in resurrecting the self who didn’t feel safe within a business of my own creation, there have been waves of mourning manifesting themselves in various forms. But that child is safe here now, with the wise guide I’ve been quietly cultivating amidst processing grief. Here I want to use what privilege I have for something good, something true, something pure in a world that I honestly have lost so much faith in.

FUTURE:

This is just a newsletter.

And here is where you can imagine me writing and recording the audio each week at home in my little apartment in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, WA.

It’s just an email. It wont change the world. It’s something I am committing to which, honestly, is a big deal for me and where I have been at emotionally and mentally over the last 3 years. Committing to anything after profound loss is terrifying. There is freedom in nothingness, in naivety. What is there to mess up? I, on the other hand, have lost that fresh young soul, replaced by something more aged, worn and hopefully wise. I am full of resources, filled with content and projects, creations from the past that I’ve built upon over and over again, and many more ideas I have yet to explore and share. I have an abundant wealth of stories, and these, I want to share. I don’t want to disappoint you, and I don’t want to disappoint myself. But if we can agree here that this, like anything else, is simply a work in progress, that mistakes will be made and I will learn from them, then I think I can keep this going.

I want to write. I want to create again. I want purpose, drive, passion. And I want the same for you. Small incremental changes, little commitments, steady follow through, these are my practices now. And in framing of Past|Present|Future, I plan to share more stories that will help you feel less alone, a little more loved, and guided gently with new hope. In sharing my stories, I hope the vulnerability I spill becomes a drop in your well of communal love and care.

So, where are you at? Who are you now in comparison to the person you were in 2019? I want to hear from you! Visit my substack, where every newsletter from this series exists. Leave a comment on this post and I promise to read every single one and respond. It’s a gift to know you’re still here. I am too.

Love you so much and thank you for being here,
xo Moorea Seal

THESE THINGS NOW by Moorea Seal

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