Our Stories Are Our Superpowers

A crisis of confidence and speaking my vampires into the sun

I’m having a crisis in confidence, friends. And I’m following reputable advice that tells me when impostor syndrome rears its head, put it out into the world so it can dissolve in the light like the insidious vampire it is. 

So it’s story time… 

In my day job I do Meaningful Work. I’m a teacher in an alternate program for youth who aren’t meeting their potential in mainstream high school. I plan and teach curriculum and go to meetings and send emails and wrangle teenagers all day long. At gatherings or conferences when people ask what I do, I can talk for hours about it and feel proud to have worked my way to this place.

It’s my dream job and on good days I feel I’m making a difference. (On less good days I have physically confiscated car keys from underage drivers and chased kids down the street in my Halloween costume. Not saying it’s perfect, but I love it.)  

Yet in my other hours, I show up tentatively to this keyboard and in front of my phone camera to write and share about getting dressed and taking pictures and mixing cocktails and listening to podcasts and imaginary dinner parties and other less weighty things. 

There’s a juxtaposition in this division of my energies. It both makes absolute perfect sense to me and inoculates me with a huge dose of self-doubt and inferiority.

I partially blame a whole quote that has told me for years that “those who can’t do, teach” which must mean I can’t do a whole heck of a lot of stuff.

I started writing about interiors and creativity and personal style on Substack before anyone seemed to be here, and confidence didn’t feel like it mattered because nobody was around to compare myself to anyways. I was writing into a void for myself more than anything. 

Over the last few months it seems Substack has been growing. I even found a few fellow humans who are writing about similar topics to me. 

And herein lies the problem… Upon finding said peers, the shaky foundation of my confidence crumbled beneath me. 

Folks, there are actual fashion writers showing up on this platform to write about the same kinds of things I do. They’ve worked at Vogue and styled celebrities and gone to fashion school. They live in NYC and go to fashion week and have insider access to trend reports. These things are their actual life’s work during the day. 

So what business do I have writing about life and style? I’m just an everyday human being who loves nice things and has a lot to say about getting dressed. 

I’m just a teacher, for goodness’ sakes. Just an elder Millennial, a thrifter who still sometimes over shops and has a jam-packed closet that could never be confused for a capsule wardrobe. 

I sometimes yank everything out of my closet while getting ready for work and yell “I HAVE NOTHING TO WEAR” while sweating off my freshly done makeup. I’m nervous doing outfit checks in public and I suffer extreme angst at the thought of one of my channels blowing up and work people seeing it. I still put on the wrong thing sometimes and go out feeling frumpy.

I’m still learning. 

And it feels hard to show up with the baggage of these thoughts alongside other professionals. 

Do you feel me?! 

I’m going to assume you do, and skip ahead to the part where I practice self-compassion and talk myself off the ledge. 

Let’s go back to the place where this story began: my classroom. 

Thirteen years ago, I entered the teaching profession with a duffel bag full of doubt that this career was for someone like me. As a former high school dropout who didn’t fit the picture-perfect mold of the rule-following authoritarian teacher, I looked to my colleagues and tried to blend in even if it meant faking it. It took me time to realize that there are a whole lot of people who actually need my particular way of approaching my work. That the uniqueness of my story and all its plot twists are perfect to uplift and work with my perfect community.

As I tell my students: Our stories are our superpowers; our struggles, our secret weapons.

So maybe—just maybe—in the same way my students need me as a teacher, there are a few of you out there who need and even want to read about these things from my point of view? 

If so, you heard it here first: I’m not formally educated in fashion, a brand has never sent me a PR box, I don’t style professionally and I don’t even do it perfectly for myself all the time. I’ve never been invited to NYFW or written a book about clothes, but I dream about both of those things and believe it’s wholly possible that I can write meaningful letters to you about enjoying nice things while being human in public.

Can I wholly apply this way of thinking to my outside-of-teaching work just yet? Not quite. But I’m starting by telling you this story today. 

Hopefully the vampire sizzles just a little.