How did I get here?

I’ve spent waaaaay too much time online since the new year rung in. You? Happy 2026 - “Stretch Yourself Daily” is my motto. Does that mean stretching my scroll time endlessly to see what breaking news is happening? I don’t think that was the intention, but here I am.

So I saw on Instagram that many people are posting photos of themselves and their lives from 2016. And it got me thinking. What happened that year and what did it lead to? The collective conscience must be yearning for a time when deciding what Instagram filter to use and what to add to the grid seemed like a serious issue. If only we could make social media less combative nowadays.

So here goes. I remember feeling a strong sense of disconnection in 2016 from my previous life in Los Angeles. I had moved to a small creative mountain town, Asheville in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. It felt like I had shed a skin, with hardly any remaining bits of my LA life remaining from the previous 10 years. I felt in disarray, almost questioning what I had accomplished the years prior because I wasn’t all fabulous on the ‘gram. So flipping stupid in hindsight, I know. It was the peak of perfection on the grid, and I felt like my life was unravelling.

As I look and post these photos, though, I realize that they are the highlights - they don’t show what was going on underneath the colourful, filtered facade.

I had closed my beloved clothing boutique in 2015 in Los Angeles (thanks landlord who tripled the rent in 6 years) and needed a rest and a change. My husband had been working in Asheville, North Carolina for a couple of years and we split our time between the two cities. It was a challenge with a young daughter and my boutique. I thought it was time for a pause, maybe a chance to start a new business in the small mountain town. I had done what I wanted in LA and nothing seemed to flow, leading me to a new location there. So I was hopeful and thought I would just close up shop and move on. Easy, right?!

Instead I got there and felt like a fish out of water. The energy felt off, I didn’t love the mountain hippy vibe and I realized maybe I had made a terrible mistake. It sounded all fab from the outside. We lived in a sweet bungalow across the street from a park, my daughter was almost 5, and I could take a rest. There was a great frozen yogurt shop down the street, I walked her to school on a scooter. In reality, though, I was lost. The thought of transitioning my business to an online clothing store bored me to tears. I didn’t have my flow of conversations with my regular customers that I loved experiencing in person at my boutique in Venice. I was not happy.

So I stopped trying and did something else. I was going to become an Artist, a daunting title. Talk about feeling like an imposter. Luckily, there were plenty of art opportunities in the creative town, so I took classes, went to the art supply shop, and started a daily art journal habit that I put up daily on Insta #ArtJournalDuJour … Somehow I started to felt a small sense of purpose with a small goal to accomplish something with my budding art interest each day. The entries into my art journal centered on techniques, monthly focuses, and simply trying out lots of new things. One month I focused on florals, another on birds. Sometimes it was song lyrics, or the writings of Rumi. Whatever. I played with salt on watercolours, gesso, collage, and stitching on paper. And I posted each of them daily. I kept thinking that my fashion customers probably thought that I had lost my mind. But staying in the familiar fashion zone wasn’t working. By moving across the country, I had lost my fabric sources, pattern maker, seamstress, production people, and most importantly - in person platform. I even tried to get a lease for a shop. Nope - denied. And a small space that I rented in an antique mall lost money each month. I felt like a failure.

Somehow art kept me going. My mental health wasn’t great as I kept thinking that everyone’s life was so much better. At least they appeared that way on the gram. After all, they hadn’t blown up their lives and were dealing with the consequences.

Hmmm. In hindsight, though, this 2016 rough patch moved me along. There weren’t many art gatekeepers in Asheville, so I could simply put my head down and make art. Anyone could make art. I took oil painting, portrait making, encaustic, natural dying, and hand stitching classes. I played, or tried to when I wasn’t in a funk.

Fortunately my husband agreed with me and also recognized that our mountain small town dreams weren’t meant for the long haul, and we moved to London by the end of 2016.

Ready to embrace a new country and give my creativity a spin, it’s been quite a ride. I now proudly call myself an “Artist” and have found a community of likeminded artists that I feel comfortable working alongside. I also am back to working with face to face connections as a florist on a popular village street in London. Same same but different. And I still post (and scroll) the gram. Hopefully showing imperfections and the reality of these wobbly times.

Which leads me to you - how are you navigating social media nowadays? More, less, or not at all?

You can find out more about me and check out (and purchase if you like) my art here. Better yet, if this post speaks to you, please share this with a friend and subscribe . That is if you’re into this rambling world of mine. Let’s see where things take us.

XO, M.E.