An Introduction

I wrote most of what you’re about to read in 2024.

Which is funny, because at the time I was apparently very ready to launch this.

And then I didn’t.

Instead, I kept working. Kept moving. Kept collecting ideas. Changed jobs. Changed cities. Changed industries. Changed my mind about a few things and became even more sure about others.

And somewhere along the way, this intro stayed sitting in a draft.

After the pandemic, I wanted to start a women’s social club in Manhattan specifically for post-university New York transplants. After grad school, I wanted to start a podcast for the average working, coming-of-age gal—with the understanding that we’ve collectively moved a woman’s coming-of-age from 23 to, say, 30.

That somehow bled into dreams of owning and operating a bed-and-breakfast centered around community events and social gatherings. Think: an 80-person wedding followed by a giant B&B sleepover. If you saw Amanda Cordes’ wedding recap, that’s the idea. Or Nine Perfect Strangers, minus the drugging you without your consent.

I’ve wanted to garden and explore farm-to-table living. Cook more, eat out less. I was absolutely prepared to become a sourdough person if I could just get my hands on someone’s starter. I’ve wanted to take a doula course for years. Build a creative studio for ceramics. Maybe Pilates? Start the YouTube channel I’ve been threatening to start since 2014 and document all of the above.

The list is endless.

My time, unfortunately, is not.

And this—here—is another idea.

I’m calling it Aviously.

It’ll be a sporadic newsletter of sorts. Weekly, sometimes monthly, probably biweekly—which feels like an appropriate level of commitment for someone who first drafted this two years ago.

There won’t be one direct theme.

Instead, it’ll loosely follow my career, events, hospitality, things I’m learning, places I’m going, things I’m cooking, things I’m buying, ideas I can’t stop thinking about, and the silly little interests that make up my silly little life.

Mostly, it’s something I want to make for myself.

But you’re invited.

There’s no pressure, no strings attached, and absolutely nothing required from you in return—except, obviously, your undying loyalty, readership of every edition, and an occasional message telling me you simply cannot wait for the next one.

A handful of content creators—God forbid I admit to following influencers—have genuinely inspired me over the years.

As a consumer of their content, I became invested. I watched them grow up, change careers, build businesses, get married, have children, move across the country, change their minds, and evolve—all without ever meeting them.

We can say whatever we want about influencers, but telling a story well enough that five people care about your life is an accomplishment. Hundreds, thousands, or millions? That’s kind of incredible.

If you can make me tear up because your daughter brought you coffee, and somehow I’m emotional because I feel like I watched you raise her too, you’ve built one hell of a community.

Those are the moments when I’m grateful for the internet and the strange, wonderful connections it can create.

And I’ve realized that I’m at a point where I don’t only want to consume.

I want to create.

In 2015, I followed a content creator with around 4,200 followers—which felt like a lot at the time—who was dating a hip New York DJ. She was an entrepreneur with a weekly lifestyle newsletter that I read between university classes.

It was the first email newsletter I ever willingly subscribed to. The rest of my personal Gmail inbox was basically ad trash, but hers? I opened every single one.

I was 20, and her life was so wildly unrelatable to mine that I found it endlessly entertaining. In a lot of ways, she even helped inspire my eventual move to New York.

Years later, she had more than a million followers.

But much like our IRL friendships, sometimes the people we follow evolve into people we no longer connect with.

Eventually, I realized I had reached that point. I acknowledged the strangely bittersweet feeling, mentally said a little thank-you for a brief-but-years-long one-sided relationship, and gently hit unfollow.

Maybe that’s what all of this is about anyway: the ebb and flow of people, interests, and stages of life—and whether someone happens to find you at exactly the right time.

So I hope you stay here for as long as you want to.

And if disinterest seeps in someday, I hope you quietly say thank you, hit unfollow, and find something else that makes your happy little heart excited to follow along.

When I first wrote this in 2024, I ended it by saying:

Maybe this will be an absolute flop. But the worst thing it can really do is flop.

Apparently, I forgot one other possibility:

I could leave it sitting in my drafts for years.

So perhaps the scariest part was never whether anyone would read it.

It was hitting publish.

Here goes.

Welcome to Aviously—

a newsletter about everything that feels so very Avious.