2020

Wooo buddy. What a year. A year full of loss and heartache but also full of so many brilliant moments of growth and togetherness. When I look back at the end of 2019 I look at all the goals I made for myself in 2020. How I would hike more and laugh more and feel more. How I would follow my gut and hug a lot of trees. And you know what, even with it being a crazy year, I did those things. Perhaps even more that I would have in a normal year. Losing my job I was forced to take risks and for the first time in my life I didn’t have a plan to follow. This year, I’ve had time to think about what I want out of the future. I bought a van and adopted the sweetest pupper. I moved. I discovered new crafts. I was forced to accept my privilege and learn about all the injustices in our country. I still hugged a lot of trees (even if they were smaller than the ones in California, they still felt just as grand). I saw the value of relationships (even if at times they seemed harder than ever this year). I felt a lot. Cried a lot. Cursed the universe a couple hundred times. But through it all, I’ve had so many break throughs and so much clarity. Clarity about the life I want and the path I want to take. I’ve learned a ton about patience and have had to go with the flow and trust in a way I have never been good at before.

When I look at this year, I look at it as my first full year of adulthood. My first full year out of school where the path I take is totally up to me (and perhaps a dash of luck). For my whole life before this, I have felt on pace with everyone else around me. Perhaps that is due to life through our early 20s being dictated by school. As such, everyone is doing similar things and achieving similar life goals through the end of college. But then you are thrown into the real world where everyone is doing things at different times and it’s hard not to feel as though you are going too slow or too fast or that you are doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. It’s hard not to feel pressure. But this year has shown me that there is no script for how you are supposed to live your life or order in which you are supposed to proceed (unless you want there to be). There is no right or wrong path, there is just your path. Your life can be what you want it to be if you have the drive and determination to stand on that scary edge and take the plunge and accept the risks. Because gosh even if you think you are being responsible and following a safe path, everything can blow up and that plan can become obsolete. So why not live your life how you want to, why wait for it to get blown up? Blow it up yourself.

So in 2021, I am looking forward to giving myself space to keep figuring out this crazy, wild, big thing we like to call adulthood. To being kind to myself and listening to what my mind, body and soul needs. To snuggling my pupper extra tight. To getting outdoors and exploring new areas in a VW van (dare-I-say). To moving more; to music, at yoga, on my bike, on the trail, in any way I can. To continuing to foster a community. To reading more, writing more, and telling the people I care about, how much I care about them more. To diving deeper into my spirituality and letting my intuition guide me. To finding ways to fight for the outdoors and combine my passion for creativity with my passion for the earth. To breathing deeper and being more free to whatever may come my way. Heck, I hope at the end of 2021 I am as surprised at where I am as I have been this year.

Here are some of my favorite moments from the wild, wild year:

1 doggo, 3 tattoos, 1 move across the country, 3 roommates, 1 VW van, 35 good shower cries, 5 contract jobs, 1 pandemic, 3 protests, 2 backpacking trips, 100s of hours of Spotify, 5 punch needle projects, 50 bike rides, 1 trip to Canada, 7 pizza nights, 1 plant sale, 5 yellow (ah) garden grown cucumbers, 1 lake trip, 15 finished pieces of pottery, 500k sent Tik Toks, 1 a-hole elected out (thank g), 3 new pairs of party pants, 800 zoom meetings, 1 lay-off, 20 propagated plants, 300 cups of Earl Grey tea and here we are, the end of the craziest year yet. Cheers to this next year being as unexpected as 2020.

xo Kait

Farewell California

I always knew I would live in San Francisco after graduation. I knew it was a place I needed to be at that moment in my life. The close access to insane parks, the promise of a job with a team I adored, the excitement of meeting new people and continuing to figure out who I was. But the past year hasn’t been easy. Moving to a new city by yourself, ain’t all sunshine and rainbows (as much as I wish it was). I have struggled to find a community and meet people, to feel like I am making a difference with what I do as a designer and to feel like I belong.

But I kept pushing and staying hopefully and at the beginning of 2020 I finally felt like I was starting to find my way and feel a part of something in Oakland. I was taking classes at the most accepting yoga studio I’d ever been apart of, I was learning pottery from an amazing teacher with new friends, I was discovering more about my energy structure and the place we hold on the earth from my dear friend Jeannie, I was hiking as much as I wanted to, and it felt so good. It finally felt like I was making progress and growing how I had dreamed I would grow when I first moved out here. I was in love with the culture and vibrancy of Oakland and the openness of people to accept and love those around them.

Unfortunately, shortly after I started to feel comfortable and excited about this new shift, COVID hit (bum, bum, bum). I was all of a sudden without a job, without access to the community that I had finally started to build, in an apartment by myself, unable to hike, feeling lonelier and more confused than I had in years. Every day I would wake up, look at job listings that I wasn’t competitive for and wonder what the heck I was supposed to do next. I didn’t plan for this and we all know as much as I would like to be spontaneous, I am a planner.

It’s been a couple months since then and as I process and reflect on my time in the Bay area I am nothing but thankful. For the people, the places and the adventures I have had here. For the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, as in those places of vulnerability I have grown the most. I am so grateful to my team at Thumbtack for being my family, to pottery for teaching me that it’s ok to make a mess and not be perfect, to Jeannie for showing me that we are so much bigger than ourselves, to the trails for reminding me of what my biggest passion in life is and to the strangers that became friends.

But it’s time for a change and a shift, and as my lease is coming to an end, I have decided to move back to Ohio. I want to be around family and friends while I figure out this next stage of my life. To give myself space to create, to letterpress and screen print. To do some freelance work while working on my side passions that I have had on the to do list for so long. So while I feel every emotion under the sun about leaving the Bay, I know the timing is right. I don’t think my time on the West Coast is done (Seattle, you there?). But I am hopefully and excited to enter this next step with the support of my family and friends and a new fire under my butt to find a company to work for that I support with every part of my being.

Here are some photos from the past few months, which of course had to include one final epic road-trip with a magical friend (musings continued after):

I honestly believe that everything happens for a reason. So here’s to this next stage being full of unexpected discoveries, endless creativity and new perspective shifts.

Bay area pals - I love you, thank you for pushing me and supporting me in a really raw, transformative time of my life.

Ohio pals - I’ll see you soon bbs, grab the Rhinegeist!!

Cheers - keleniak

#heckya

Thank you Thumbtack

For those that don’t know, last week I was laid off due to COVID-19 affecting the economy and unfortunately my company. On Monday, 30% of the company was laid off over a zoom call. And due to getting locked out of my computer right after, I haven’t had the opportunity to thank Thumbtack and my team. I’ve been wanting to write this all week but I haven’t know how to even begin to say thank you to a team and time in my life I loved with my whole heart.

My time at Thumbtack started in the fall of 2018, when little ol’ Kait was starting her last internship before graduating at a place that did something or other with connecting people to small businesses. Having only interned at agencies, I was nervous about going in-house, about working in the same typeface and color palette at all times and about working at a place that had over 20 people. Little did I know how much that internship would push me and help me grow. How I would join a team that wanted nothing but to help me explore my passions and support me in whatever way they could. How I would be joining a team that crushed it no matter what was asked of them. Before Thumbtack I didn’t know what I wanted out of my future in design or if the design world was even for me. But within 2 months of working at Thumbtack I knew I wanted nothing more than to work there after grad with that incredible team and I was lucky enough to be given a job offer to come back.

When I came back full-time the creative team had shifted and changed with new faces and a new structure of working. But it had the same fire, the same desire to tell a meaningful story and really impact our community and local businesses. My teammates were (and still are) wicked smart and complete bad asses at what they do. We really were building a world class team and I was so dang excited to be a part of it. Through the past 8 months I have learned so much about myself. About how everything I do, I do for people. About how connections and community are the most important thing in the world to me. Through crits and working with collaborative designers I was able to push myself and my designs in ways I never had before and learned to make decisions quickly and thoughtfully. I learned my strengths and my weaknesses and had a team there willing to help push me and help me succeed. I learned that there is nothing better than making your teammates smile or laugh and that bringing people together fills me with enough energy to run a million miles.

And those people. My golly those people. My friends. My family. I am going to miss them with all of my being. I am going to miss talking about essential oils and Claudia the orange and having deep talks about life and design and dreams and dogs. I am going to miss jamming to songs and sitting side by side and collaborating and eating lunch together and laughing with my full body and getting noise complaints. I feel so lucky that I got to be a part of that incredible team for as long as I did and because of those humans I am moving forward more confident in my design skills and who I am as a designer and human.

Thumbtack was more than a job for me, it was a family and my community. Truthfully, I wasn’t ready to move on, I felt like there was more for me to learn from my team and the company. More for me to help push and more to help push me. But life throws you unexpected curves and this is one of them. And it hurts and I am still in disbelief, but I am keeping my head up and reminding myself that there is more for me out there. More adventures, more mountains, more design challenges and more connections.

Monday was a tough day but as soon as I heard the news I posted on Linkedin and Instagram asking for help and the outpouring of love made my heart feel like it was going to explode. Whether it was a text or a call or a message or a funny video or kind words, I felt so surrounded in a bubble of love and support. And I can’t even begin to thank every person that reached out. It reminded me that connections are so so important and treating each person you meet with kindness and love can do nothing but good things.

As I enter this new space of the stillness, I feel surprisingly okay in the unknown. I know that this time will give me space to think about what I really want to do with my future. To be creative and create for the sake of creating. To reconnect with old co-workers and friends. To journal and reflect and think about who I want to be. I am excited to really focus on myself and my dreams in this time and am ready for whatever the future may hold. I know I can take it on because of the incredible people I have in my life and because of my time at Thumbtack with that incredible, bad ass team.

(Side note: A lot of other people at my company got laid off, so if you know anyone hiring producers, product designers, photographers, video editors, or brand managers, please let me know as these people are the best of the best and I would love to connect you.)

Here are some of my absolute favorite moments that make me belly laugh and cry at the same time from all my time at Thumbtack:

Cheers to the next chapter <3

keleniak

#heckya

January

January has been a refresh. A reset. The beginning of my first full year of being an adult. Of doing this whole 8-5 thing 5 days a week. Of staying still. Of growing roots. Of adventuring the crap out a place I get to call home. And for the first time since moving my life across the country, I don’t feel unsettled by that. I let January be a time of intention setting, of really focusing on me and figuring out what I need to feel ok with the life I am building. Whether it’s been ceramics and getting to create with my hands again and learn a thing or two about patience and letting go of what you expect something to be, or sound journeys and chi gung and really centering my presence, or finally getting back into yoga and feeling the sense of peace that comes from being back on the mat. January was the peaceful start I needed to start refiguring out who I am in the new-found world of full time work. And if this month was telling for how the rest of the year is going to go, I am pretty darn excited in the direction I am headed.

The best part of this past month was my 3 best buds from college coming to stay for a weekend. These humans loved me at my awkwardest moments and convinced me that I was indeed confident in who I am. I have them to credit for my hidden six pack of abs from laughing so gosh darn much and for making me believe in myself and the potential of who I could be. Getting to share with them the magic that is Oakland and Northern California was a dream. My apartment felt full of laughter, love and light and the sun literally broke through the clouds for them. Having them here made me realize why people never move away, because when you find life long friends like this, why would you ever want to leave. But we all have dreams and aspirations and we all are gonna be by each other every step of the way cheering each other on. And then of course later in life we will be neighbors and our kids will be best friends and we will sip wine and talk about the misadventures of our youth. And gosh darn it, just knowing they have my back and I have theirs from wherever in the world we all are fills my heart and soul with so much purpose and joy.

Here are some of my favorite moments from a beautiful start to a new year (musings continued after):

5 banana slugs, 1 trip from the BEST gal pals, 1 month back at work, 3 hikes, 5 sunsets, 3 breweries, 4 ceramics classes, 1 attempted trip to San Diego, 2 sounds journeys, 1 antique fair, 2 beach days, 4 new plants, 1 major project milestone at work, 3 Chi Gung classes, 1 new jumpsuit and so many lovely moments later, this year is off to a bang and I can’t wait to take on whatever it brings!

Cheers - keleniak

#heckya