It was the year I had just turned 30 and it seemed like almost daily, I was giving myself the same little pep talk.

I ain’t no weak ass bitch.

But I do feel weak. Defeated even. All of this…it’s never-ending. Work. Eat. Sleep. Mental meltdown. Repeat. Nothing in between. The urge to abandon every responsibility I have... intensifies. And in an instant, I give into it. Microscopically at least.

You know what? Fuck dinner. Fuck laundry too. 

I’m going to abandon it all, just for tonight. That’s gotta be ok, right? People have hobbies, don’t they?

I don’t have many hobbies, but I do have one I rather like.

Heading to the garage, I stumble over piles of junk and make my way to the paint supplies. There, I begin digging through our paint supplies. Gathering brushes, paints, antiques, and anything else I can find. I just need a small project, to get me out of my head for the evening.

The sight of all the colors brings a small smile to my face.

How pretty. A rainbow of potential.

Once back inside, with my arms overflowing with supplies, I settle myself on the living room floor to start painting.

 

It’s there, brush in hand, that my breathing begins to slow again, the racing of my heart seems to slow, and the tension in my shoulders seem to ease up. A few minutes later, the world around me melts away.

When Jose comes in the door 20 minutes later, I’m covered in paint and so is the floor. He looks less than pleased, his eyebrows so close, they might kiss. Leaving my brushes on the floor, I start to get up.

“What do you want for dinner?” I ask him expectantly.

“It’s okay,” he says. “I got it.”

“Thanks,” I say, my voice barely audible.

Relieved, I settle right back on the floor while he makes his way around the kitchen.

The next night, I paint again.. And the night after that too. Soon, painting becomes my nightly relief. My mini escape from everything that feels far too heavy. As a result, I soon start painting practically everything, like a rabid crafty raccoon. Picture frames. Candlesticks. Furniture. Decor. Doors. Cabinets. Floors. You name it; I probably painted it.

The stillness that painting brings me soon becomes something I crave. I find myself daydreaming about my next projects during the day. Surrounded by corporate chaos more often that not, I yearn for the peace that my little hobby gives me. That calm. It’s become my favorite PMDD coping mechanism lately, knocking vodka into third place, next to the beach.

It isn’t long, before my little hobby lands me in trouble, taking me down a dangerous path of irrational impulsivity.

Obsessed with the up-cycling process, I soon begin skipping lunch at work to go thrifting instead, to find more things to paint.

The obsession intensifies. The more I painted; the more it’s all I want to do. So I do. As a result, I start showing up to work with paint still stuck to parts of my hands and occasionally in my hair. The judge-filled glances from my co-workers doesn’t go unnoticed by me but I keep my mouth shut, giving them zero explanation as to why I seem to always look like I’m half-way through a DIY project. I’m sure they came to their own conclusions anyway, and those conclusions, are simply none of my business.

Sitting in yet another meeting that could have easily been an email, I fantasize about walking out the door for the 1000th time in the last few years. My toes feel pinched in my heels and my corporate pants feel like a straight jacket for my thighs. I tug at them in irritation, rooted in my discomfort.

As my boss drones on and on about revenue, goals, and self starters, I fantasize about opening my own artsy, vintage shop.

What if that could be a thing? Like a little vintage shop by the sea, filled with all of my painted treasures. Like… treasures by the sea.

“Treasures. Treasures by the sea.” I can hear it softly in my mind. I love the way it sounds.

I love sounds. Like the sounds of my heels clickity clackity right the fuck out of here.

Mid fantasy, my manager’s voice is suddenly booming, bringing my attention back to the meeting. He’s still rambling on about revenue when I remember that I’m supposed to be looking like I care.

But I don’t. Not even a little bit. In this moment, I’d rather be almost anywhere than right here.

It’s then, that it trickles in. That dreadfully familiar sense of impending doom starts to wash over me. I recognize it immediately and as a result, my body tenses as it prepares itself for the spiral. My muscles tighten and I suddenly can feel my anxiety coursing through my veins — it sounds faintly like frantic humming, but feels like life or death. Mostly death.

Mid exhale, the need to run, to bolt, to get the fuck out of here — consumes me. This urge to run continues to barrel through me, urging me to give into it. The sounds of the room turn up to full volume and I can suddenly hear everything, in stereo. Every pen click, every paper shuffle, every lip smack, every nail bitten. Everything. It’s all consuming.

I need to go.

I don’t know where I need to go. I just know that I do. But I can’t. Glancing around, I wonder if any of them can tell that I’m in the middle of a mental breakdown. No one seems to notice and if they do, they don’t seem to care.

Well, that’s good at least.

When the work day finally ends, I hurry home to make dinner, even though I’m dreading it. But that’s life these days. Half the time I seem to be dreading all of it. Even existence.

During dinner the kids are extra chatty so I don’t have to be. I’m grateful for this. I don’t feel like speaking. In fact, I just feel like hiding.

Mid dinner, the urge to bolt out of the front door once again consumes me.

When dinner’s over, I slip out the front door, keys in hand, and head straight for the ocean.

My body vibrates with anxiety the whole drive there. I swear I can feel It over the bass of the music.

The sensation makes me want to climb out of my skin and toss it into the road, in hopes that a good Samaritan will run over it. As if somehow, that could fix it.

When I reach my destination, 13 minutes later, the beach is pitch black, but I don’t mind. By the time my feet are in the sand, for some reason… I’m sobbing.

You’ve really lost it.

Sinking to the sandy floor, I give in to my emotions and let myself feel them. Really feel them.

I hate it.

In this moment, I’m not even sure why I’m so upset. I just think that I am.

And for some reason, I think that quitting my job will solve at least half of my problems.

I let the tiny grains of sand trickle through my hands as tears stream down my cheeks. They both glimmer in the moonlight. Closing my eyes, I listen to the waves crashing at the shore, again and again. Their rhythmic dance almost sounds like music or a giant, all knowing alien, just breathing. Both ideas are relaxing to me.

I sit there for what feels like hours.

I don’t know how long I stayed, but by the time I leave, I already know the answer about my little seaside dream. It came to me, by the sea, while I sat beneath the stars, listening to the aliens breathing.

On the drive home, my tears seem to have dried up, their salty film, still streaking my face. When I get home, I tell Jose about my seaside dream and how the sea guided me… I leave out the part about the aliens.

When I do, he stares at me blankly for an uncomfortably long time and I don’t blame him.

When he finally speaks, I can hear the doubt trickling through his voice. “How would that go, exactly?” he asks me.

I hesitate for a moment and it’s then that I realize that I truly have not thought this through. I don’t know a single thing about owning any business, let alone a brick and motor. For a moment I consider gaslighting the hell out of him and telling him that he wouldn’t understand even if I explained my plan, but my conscious butts in, like the annoying menace that she is.

Not so fast bitch. Your pants are going to catch on fire.

I teeter between the two versions of me, my darkness and the light. With a roll of my eyes, I reluctantly sub-come to my moral compass, answering him honestly instead.

“I have no idea,” I say only slightly defeated. My ignorance doesn’t bother me, even though it should.

His eyes meet mine, but he says nothing. I’m practically infamous for my impulsive decisions, so this isn’t exactly new territory for us. When he still says nothing nearly a minute later, I fill in the silence.

“I know this sounds crazy, but the problem with risk is, you never know if it’s worth it. The other problem with it is, you never know what you’ll miss if you don’t give in to it.”

His shoulders fall a bit. I can tell he is about to say something but this time, I interrupt him before he gets a chance to, desperate to convince him.

“Look, I can’t escape this vision. It visits me in my dreams and haunts me when I’m awake. I just have this….feeling. Maybe it will completely fail, but I’ll regret it forever if I don’t at least try.”

Seeing I’m serious, his expression shifts and I can see that he’s starting to give in. “And if it doesn’t make any money you’ll quit?”

“Of course,” I fib.

And this is how it began.

Below, is our first logo from back in 2014. Less than a year later, I'd go on to invent SeaPaints - after trying endless latex paints, 8 different chalk paints, 2 milk paints, and 1 mineral paint. 

 

 

The storefront came first, the frustrations that go along with painting came second, and as a result...I started experimenting with creating my own paints. Specifically, ones that didn't smell so horrendous or take forever to dry.

And the rest is beautiful memory. After going on to selling over a million jars, I'm rather glad I had that meltdown. That collapse. Because sometimes, it's a collapse that's required before the rebuild.