Going back to your house // Back from the dead (sorry I left you hanging for like six years about those shirts I did for The Matches, but here's what happened after that)

There’s probably a very small (if it exists at all) subset of my audience that read this blog post about my handmade, limited edition merch collaboration with The Matches and were like.. um what happened with that? The announcement was made and then… what??? What happened next???

The short answer is: I got divorced.

Not really because of the shirts.

But… definitely not not because of The Matches.

It’s been quite a few years now of wanting to share more of the story of what happened as a direct result of the 2014 tour that The Matches did to celebrate the tenth anniversary of their first album, E. von Dahl Killed the Locals. But every time I think it’s time to finally put it into writing, something else happens and the entire narrative has even more layers and subplots and becomes even more difficult to summarize into a single blog post. Or even, a coherent series.

It will eventually, probably, someday, become an entire book (there’s a chapter outline saved on my laptop waiting for me to not be afraid of querying such a personal story). I’ve reached the point where I don’t think that this story will ever be over.

But today, I sit at my computer, in exactly the same spot I was (metaphorically speaking, I don’t actually remember where I was physically) when my (now) ex husband (we were very much still married at the time of the previous blog post) texted me that he was going to file for divorce.

TEXTED ME.

THAT HE WAS GOING TO FILE FOR DIVORCE.

TWO DAYS AFTER WHAT WAS LITERALLY THE MOST FUN AND EXCITING MINI TRIP TO GO CELEBRATE MY FIRST EVER PAID ART JOB AND THE END OF AN ERA WITH ALL OF MY INTERNET FRIENDS.

THAT I TOOK HIM ON AND PAID FOR WITH MONEY THAT I’D EARNED THROUGH SAID ART JOB.

AND HE TEXTED ME TWO DAYS LATER THAT HE WAS GOING TO FILE FOR DIVORCE.

(sidenote: this blog post is not about my marriage as a whole, and there is obviously a considerable amount of context that is missing for brevity’s sake, but what I do need you to know before we continue, is that the entire relationship was rife with abuse, isolation, and manipulation, which helps to give some explanation as to why, what seem like such small instances of kindness from strangers that occurred between 2014 and 2018, were 1. so significant to me, personally, and 2. directly resulted in the end of my marriage and the paths I took after that. I am self-aware enough to know that to someone who has not lived the life I have, these stories seem inconsequential, and I seem to be making a big deal about nothing, so I do need to make this clarification. Also, no I will not be detailing incidences of abuse to “prove” anything to anyone, if you think that you need to hear “both sides” of the story to decide if you believe me or not you need to leave RIGHT NOW and never come back, and if ANY of this sounds familiar to you in your current relationship dynamics please call the national domestic violence hotline you deserve so much more and there are so many services and organizations that can help you start a new life in safety)

AGAIN, TEXTED ME.

HIS WIFE OF SEVEN YEARS AND MOTHER OF HIS TWO CHILDREN WHO STOOD BY HIM THROUGH SEVEN YEARS OF POVERTY, HEALTH CRISES, QUESTIONABLE FIDELITY, AND PRETTY MUCH EVERY KIND OF ABUSE.

THAT HE WAS GOING TO FILE FOR DIVORCE BECAUSE ONE SINGLE DAY OF OUR ENTIRE MARRIAGE COULDN’T BE MADE ABOUT HIM.

Ok I’m going to stop yelling now and explain what I mean by “in exactly the same place” because, I didn’t really explain that, did I?

Well, where I am right now (again figuratively not literally), is two days post seeing a Matches’ reunion show at The Fillmore in San Fransisco, where I had an absolutely delightful time seeing one of my favorite bands and catching up with so many (now long term) long distance friends that I met through The Matches (I did not have a custom merch collaboration this time, but we’re still counting this as being back in the same place). A little sore, a lot tired, and so, so happy to have gotten to have that experience.

Only now, I’m not just so, so happy to have had that experience once.

I’m so, so happy to have had that experience, survived not only the immediate aftermath but what can only be described as a six year long baptism by fire that has only somewhat recently begun to subside, and made it all the way back around to complete the circle as someone reborn from the ashes with an entirely new life, and have the experience again, only this time, it was good. It was so, so good.

From here, it’s… it’s dare I say… almost… funny that, if you zoom out far enough, my abusive ex husband was so threatened on an existential level from one (married) frontman of a (not famous and not currently touring/releasing music) pop punk band was nice (in 100% completely wholesome ways only) to his wife and hired her for one (one!!!) small (under $1k total profit) art job that she did in addition to her responsibilities as a DEDICATED wife and mother.

But obviously, IT WAS VERY MUCH NOT FUNNY AT THE TIME.

So where had we left off?

The shirts! I had spent months sourcing vintage sweaters and button up shirts, embroidering them with my designs, preparing the shirts for sale, AND, the part that I didn’t tell anyone at the time, being screamed at on the regular because of how stupid it was that I was “making overpriced t-shirts for my high school crush” instead of whatever the hell it was my ex husband wanted me to be doing (which, I want to add, was clearly not spending time with him because at this point he was basically never home and barely participated in family activities), and as a result, wondering every day if I should text Shawn that I give up and can’t do the shirts anymore.

But, like a dumbass (or an idealist, depending on how you look at it), I not only finished the shirts, but used my money, from the separate business bank account that Etsy sales went into (this is another THING that I don’t have space to go into here) to take him with me to go see the show and celebrate the culmination of this project and the tour.

I booked the trip, we flew up for the day, and for the record I had a great time and it was everything I could have wanted. We even met up with some of my new internet friends before the show!

The show was great, my shirts either completely sold out or almost sold out, EVERYONE was complementing them/me and when we hung around outside the venue so I could see the guys from the band and get a picture with them, and the whole time people were asking me how I was doing and all I could get out was “this is just surreal.”

In retrospect, yes, my ex was making rude remarks through the entire thing, but I was able to brush them off as just, he’s not a nice person, its fine. But THAT WASN’T GOING TO TAKE AWAY FROM THIS MOMENT WHERE I FINALLY FOR ONE TIME EVER GOT A TIME TO SHINE.

And then, two days later, the aforementioned text message.

And I think… I think there was a big part of me that thought this was the end of the story.

I didn’t want my marriage to end, so I did do everything I could to make myself small, not rock the boat, and not let the embroideries cause any more problems.

This lasted… a few weeks, until I got, yet another once-in-a-lifetime, living-out-my-teenage-dreams opportunities: flying out to Minneapolis to go see Justin Pierre (from Motion City Soundtrack) play a solo show, and have breakfast with him at his house the next day, because, and I am not making this up, my gynecoligist’s niece, who I only knew online because we followed each others blogs for a bit and had. never met in real life, moved from LA to Minneapolis, and JUSTIN PIERRE WAS HER NEIGHBOR.

(This is another thing that, yes, there is a lot more to it but again, now is not the time or place for it, but what you need to know is that my ex husband was pissed and I went anyway and it was lovely and 100% worth the consequences when I got home)

And again, an even bigger part of me wanted this to be the end of the story, that the embroideries were just a fun little detour, a glimmer of joy in an overwhelmingly depressed and isolated life as I tried my best to hide the abuse and keep going while, by this point, raising my kids entirely alone in every meaningful way while being regularly screamed at over these small things that I have going on that he can’t make revolve around him (again, all of the context for this does not fit into nor is it appropriate for a blog post).

To catch you up on this timeline: I made and posted my first embroidery hoop in August of 2016, launched the Etsy shop in… the fall of 2016(?), was initially asked by The Matches to work on the shirt collaboration in the fall of 2017, for the tour that would happen in summer 2018. The trip to Minneapolis was in November 2018. At the time, it didn’t seem like these events were that close together. But, in retrospect, wow that was so much in so short of a time.

And I finally left him for good in May 2019.

There is far too much that has happened between then and now to include it all in one blog post. BUT.

The first two people to reach out after I publicly announced the split? Shawn (from The Matches) and Pablo (their manager). The first people to rush to support the jewelry business I started in the aftermath of my divorce (the one that that literally supports my family to this day)? Instagram friends I met through The Matches. The literal, actual last thing I did before the pandemic changed everything? A screening of Bleeding Audio, the documentary about The Matches.

As you can see, there has been a recurring theme here.

Getting out of that situation and the long, drawn out recovery process would have been an entirely different experience without everything/everyone that was in my life because of The Matches.

(Sidenote: What a follow-up to that blog post announcing the embroidered shirts, right? Was it worth the wait? I know it’s not the sequel I was expecting to write!!!)

And now, to bring things back to the present day:

This weekend I was back in San Fransisco, to see The Matches at The Fillmore (this time with my cousin).

Which yes, is the nicest, tidiest full circle moment that we could possibly have in regards to everything that happened as a direct result of… the last time I went to San Fransisco to see The Matches at the Fillmore. It was also the best time (once again all thanks to Pablo for taking care of us, like he always has, for ten whole years now).

But there was another kind of full circle moment: once again, coming back from the dead.

The second half of 2023 was, effectively, a speedrun of every bad thing that could possibly happen to a single mom in an already precarious situation that I have christened the “cavalcade of Crises” to try and diffuse the trauma a little bit (this is yet another thing that we do not have time to go into in a blog post). While things were absolutely not the same as they were in 2013, there were echos. I did not like this. And of course, it’s as this is finally calming down that The Matches announce a 20th anniversary show, giving me something to finally look forward to, a familiar glimmer of hope amidst a sea of burnout.

While for me, seeing The Matches at the Fillmore is not a homecoming in the geographic sense that it was for the Bay Area kids that had grown up alongside the band, this show was definitely the reminder I needed of how far I’ve really come in these ten years. Since that first show. Because of that first show.

For ten whole years now, Matches shows have been a safe space, where people are nice to me.

For a lot of those ten years, Matches shows were the only safe place where people were nice to me.

Those parts of the story that I’d hoped were the end? Those were the times where I believed that those nice things people said weren’t things that were true or that I deserved to hear, and it’s taken a decade of therapy to realize that… all of those good things people at Matches shows see in me and say nice things about? Those are real, those are me.

So I’m glad the story didn’t end at any of those times, and have accepted that it’s probably only going to get longer and weirder (again… this will need to be a book to fit the whole thing).

Lovely Lovely Lepidolite

I think we are all keenly aware of the fact that the world shut down almost exactly four years ago. There are a lot of topics we could dive into as we examine how the past four years have shaped us. But one thing about me is that I’m a sucker for a full-circle moment. And that’s what I want to go into today.

I want to go back to a moment when everything seemed so strange and unpredictable, and I chose to make a choice that changed the direction of my business, come back to the current moment when everything seems equally strange and unpredictable, and I’m choosing to make a choice that will change the direction of my business, and the crystal that was exactly what I needed in both moments: Lepidolite.

Lepidolite Necklace Four

from $35.00

First, lets get into the science facts: Lepidolite is an shimmery, Lithium-bearing Mica crystal that usually forms in flat slabs. It’s found all over the world, from the United States to Madagascar, and is not particularly uncommon. It is most commonly purple but can be pink as well. (source: The Crystal Bible by Judy Hall)

I first met Lepidolite in a third, previously unmentioned moment where everything seemed strange and unpredictable: at a crystal store in Hermosa Beach that I visited with my youngest sister and my two kids during the summer immediately after leaving my abusive ex husband. I was JUST starting to dip my toes into crystals, I don’t even think I’d started my jewelry business yet, and I had been on the hunt for some stones I had just learned about that were all about calming and cleansing. I remember one was selenite, one was black obsidian, and I got my kids their first crystals (clear quartz for my oldest, rose quartz for my son), and I’m not sure what else. I distinctly remember my oldest losing her shit because I said her dad was picking her up for the weekend (at the time this was a brand new development and she felt like I sprung it on her randomly) and my youngest offering to let her hold his rose quartz to calm down. It’s funny the things that stick with us.

What also stuck with me was the deep soothing energy of the little piece of Lepidolite that I bought that day.

It would be a few weeks (months?) before I started my jewelry business, and as I was adding new stones to my collection I knew that Lepidolite was a one that I NEEDED to get.

Because it literally contains Lithium (a common ingredient in psychiatric medication), Lepidolite is strongly associated with bringing a calming and stabilizing energy when life gets overwhelming. Lepidolite is the perfect stone for times of transition, because it reminds us that everything is ok, and is going to be ok. (source: Crystals - The Modern Guide to Crystal Healing by Yulia Van Doren) This was absolutely a top choice for my crisis-induced jewelry business.

Sold Out

Lepidolite Hoops (pair one)

from $35.00

The thing was, it took me a WHILE to find a strand of Lepidolite beads in the style that had become my trademark, so even though my business started in August of 2019 and I’d been looking for Lepidolite beads basically that whole time, I didn’t have any in my possession until early 2020.

And before we even get into the events of March 2020, I had my first major growing pain: because when I started my jewelry business, I had NO money to invest and honestly no plans on starting a whole BUSINESS out of that project… I had been making my necklaces from cheap, bulk silver plated chains from Etsy. This fit my ethos of bringing pieces to market FAST and at an accessible price point, but the reality was that they DID tarnish quickly and were not the kind of long-term wardrobe staple I was envisioning.

I really WANTED to switch over to solid sterling chains (my earrings were already on solid sterling since the wires cost much less than the chains), but I’d set a certain pace for the amount of jewelry I was making/posting for sale each week, and there was no way I had the up-front costs to continue that in solid sterling. The jump from paying $17 for 25 chains to paying $5-6 EACH was just too big to do all at once. I bought a few and offered sterling as an optional upgrade, which some people did take me up on, but that was a a somewhat clumsy process of getting an order and then re-making the existing piece on the sterling chain.

Fully switching to sterling would mean that I’d have to drastically slow my pace. And slightly raise my prices. AND I was a newly single mom on welfare with no child support in sight and I needed the money.

And then the pandemic hit.

I had no in-person markets to book (this ended up being only temporary), I had to shutter my private, in-home sewing lesson business (this ended up being permanent), and I wanted to make a change that would put a pretty firm cap on how much money I could make each weekend in online jewelry sales. But there was one bright spot that was the pandemic unemployment benefits. After a CAREFUL read over the rules and income limits and all that… I realized that it was time.

And I did my first all-sterling crystal drop.

Of Lepidolite.

Now I guess we’ll never know if people were drawn to the properties of the stone, or just that everyone was filling their time with online shopping, but what I do know for sure is that that first solid sterling batch of Lepidolite almost sold out.

SO obviously, every time I was shopping for new beads, I was on the hunt for more Lepidolite beads.

AND I NEVER FOUND MORE.

For years.

Until this past summer when I had fundraised for a big bead order to replace all of the inventory that was stolen out of my car (my entire box of backstock, close to $10k of jewelry and my insurance only covered $1500). And there they were. The Lepidolite beads I had been searching for, all that time.

And now they’re back, with a limited collection of one-of-a-kind pieces.

Lepidolite Necklace One

from $35.00

Just in perfect, full circle timing, for this new moment where everything seems strange and unpredictable, making a choice that will change the direction of my business.

I’ve been feeling for the better part of a year, that the way that my business organically formed over pandemic times was not working anymore. I knew in my bones that SOMETHNG needed to change but I had no idea what that something was.

I felt so much like I was working AGAINST my weaknesses instead of WITH my strengths. I invested SO much time, money, and energy into things that “made sense” as the next step and none of them were going anywhere.

I went back to school. I got an internship in an “adult job” field. I focused my energy on my own daily habits, on my kids’ self-sufficiency, on letting myself REST.

It took me months of failure and a complete financial and mental health collapse and a painstakingly slow recovery to peel away the layers of burnout and self-preservation to uncover that, in all honesty, what I do best when I’m most aligned with my zone of genius, is writing.

Which is essentially the long answer for why I’m here with a very long blog post, finally telling the STORIES that brought about the jewelry brand that has been struggling because I had been pushing down the stories in favor of trying to let the product “speak for itself.” Products can’t speak. But I can. And clearly, once I get started, it’s hard for me to stop.

This feels like a moment of stepping into a vast, uncharted new territory.

But I’m not stressing about it.

Because I have my Lepidolite.

Lepidolite Hoops (pair four)

from $35.00

(Disclosure: all images are my own unless otherwise specified, and I use Amazon Associate links to earn a small commission from purchases made through them)