Newsletter Issue No. 3: Thrifting is chasing dopamine. Reselling is devotion.

I’ve rewritten this weeks newsletter so many times. It just kept pivoting or maybe just expanding. I really thought I was going to write about my mom’s hardworking nature and deep devotion that has made such an impact in how I do things. I was feeling nostalgic earlier and wanted to track down an image I had of where I first got the ornate frame I use in all my photos. In the process of doing this I found an email from an old client thanking me and my friend for our hard work and devotion. I was like, oh there is that word again, maybe this is what I’m supposed to write about. In 2008 a friend and I started a company doing window displays. It was the last time I felt a deep rooted devotion to the work I was doing. I put all of myself into it wholeheartedly and selflessly. At the end of 2025, I made an intention for the new year that I was going to share more of myself in the work I was doing here. I feel like I’ve been hiding, protecting, incubating. I just deeply needed to go at my own pace and let things unfold organically. 

The idea of devotion first came to me when I was thinking about dopamine. Thrifting can be such a dopamine chase. I commiserate with my friends who like to thrift on how we won’t stop until we get that next boost and the cycle keeps going on and on. When I committed to reselling full time it reinforced this dopamine chase, but the thing with this business is it takes such a deep devotion to get all these things ready to be listed. In the reselling world they talk about how all these unlisted items create a heaping ‘death pile.’ It takes so much devotion to keep this pile from taking over.

So in the process of sharing more of myself in the work, something really beautiful has started to unfold. I’m sharing the principles I have when it comes to parts of my business that are pretty invisible to the world who just sees a polished image of a garment. And this is where my mother comes in. She took impeccable care of her items and was the first person to teach me about quality and repair (her nickname was Mrs. FIx It.) As I’ve been sharing more about these ideals of restoring/mending what you already have instead of buying something new, I’m teaching others to do the same. This morning at my gym, a girl told me I inspired her to get a sweater shaver. I thought to myself, oooooooo, yes, THIS, this is the work. It is the behind the scenes work that you don’t always see. It’s humble. It’s quiet. And it needs to be shared. I thought I would also talk a bit more this week about the craft in all of it, but I will marinate on that for next time.

Before I go, I wanted to share about these deep feelings of alignment I’m experiencing. I saw a psychic on Sunday. She reinforced everything I’ve been feeling about being on the right path and said the work I was doing was healing. I burst into tears. Remember the circus pants from last week? In response to my newsletter she shared with me: “Clothes have always been a type of an armor. This is a new phase in my life. I don’t need an armor.” It almost feels intense when someone REALLY sees you but so much beauty can come from it if you let it.

XO. 

Until next time,

Quietly observing the characters at the thrift store…