Happy Sunday, friend!

Last week I asked you to tell me about the breadcrumbs you’re following right now. Every afternoon this week, I made myself a glass of iced tea and carved out some time to read through each and every one.

And here's what struck me most: none of us are in exactly the same place.

One woman recently signed up for a Mahjong class she'd been wanting to try. Another has been taking pottery, line dancing and qigong classes - basically trying whatever sounds interesting to her right now, which I LOVE. Someone else wants to pick up her guitar again after 30 years and take a photography class.

One woman is thinking about how to give back to teachers in her community. Another is approaching the sunset of a demanding career and wondering what will take the place of all the identities she's carried for so long. One reader and her husband just left the house they'd lived in for 33 years and moved to be closer to their daughters.

Some of you are right where I am with kids leaving home. Some aren't there yet. One mom has kids who are only 10, 11 and 12 and told me she's consciously soaking up this season while she's in it. Another is retired, her daughters are grown and married, her grandchildren are growing up, her parents have passed, and she's asking a version of the same question I've been asking: what will fulfill me now?

There were new grandbabies, adult children moving away, youngest kids leaving for college, careers winding down, exercise routines being restarted, houses being redecorated and simplified, hobbies being rediscovered and more than a few of us trying to figure out what we want life to look like now. One woman even wrote about looking into her closet and realizing some of her clothes belonged to her previous life, while others seemed to belong to a fantasy life she wasn't actually living. You KNOW that one got the style person in me thinking. 😂

Different ages, circumstances and breadcrumbs.Different stories, but so many of the same questions underneath them.

Who am I now? What do I want this season to look like? What do I want to make room for?

And as I read all of your replies, I kept having the same thought:

I wish you could read and respond to each other’s answers.

A couple of you even wrote back with ideas for places online where we might be able to connect, which made me smile because apparently I’m not the only one craving a different kind of online space lately.

Which brings me to something I’ve been thinking about a lot...

I've been thinking lately about how much I miss the old internet.

If you've been around since my days blogging at Get Your Pretty On, you probably remember it too. I would sit down and write a post about whatever was on my mind that day, hit publish and then we'd all hang out in the comments.

Women actually talked to each other there (remember blog hopping? those were the days!). I recognized mostly everyone’s name. You recognized each other's names. We even had some fun real life meet ups!

It felt like our own little neighborhood and I loved every bit of it!

Then social media came along and, at first, I loved that too. It gave me a way to reach women who never would've found my little blog otherwise. It helped me grow Get Your Pretty On, eventually build Outfit Formulas and connect with women all over the world.

I'm incredibly grateful for what it's given me. But somewhere along the way, it changed. And honestly, so did I.

Social media started feeling less like a place where I went to connect and more like a place where I felt like I had to perform. A place where I compared myself to what everyone else was doing and a place with way too many expectations.

(can we all just go back to an analog world, please?! give me magazines and real books!)

Instead of thinking, I really want to share this, I found myself thinking, I really need to post something. Those are two VERY different feelings.

And I don't think you need to have a business or be a content creator to understand what I mean.

Maybe you remember opening Faceook or Instagram because you actually wanted to see what your friends were doing. Now maybe you just open it out of habit and somehow emerge 45 minutes later knowing what a stranger had for breakfast, what five things you're apparently doing wrong in menopause, why everyone is mad today and which kitchen gadget you absolutely NEED from Amazon. 😂

It's a lot and I find myself craving less and less of it.

This is admittedly a little complicated for me because social media isn't just entertainment. Over the years, I've somehow accumulated an audience of more than 1.5 million women across my platforms, and social media has played a huge role in building my business and allowing me to do work that I love.

Which means I probably have more reason than most people to keep playing the game. Believe me, the business owner in me fully understands how ridiculous it sounds to say, "You know that distribution channel where 1.5 million women agreed to hear from you? I think I'd like to use that a lot less." 😂

But that's exactly what I've slowly been doing. I'm posting less, as a matter of fact, I didn’t post at all for the first 3 months of this year. And I didn’t miss it.

I'm trying not to create something simply because I haven't posted in a few days. I'm sharing when I actually have something I want to say, I'm spending less time scrolling and paying much more attention to how I feel when I put my phone down.

And I'm protecting my energy around all of it more than I ever have before.

I don't think I'm leaving social media entirely. There are still things I genuinely love about it, and I know I'll continue sharing there. I'm just changing my relationship with it.

And maybe that's another part of rediscovering ourselves that we don't talk about enough.

Sometimes something can have been really good for us and still not fit us in the same way anymore.

• A career.

• A friendship.

• A house.

• A routine.

• A version of success.

• Even something we once loved…

We don't have to make it bad in order to admit that we want something different now. I'm learning that more and more.

I can be grateful for what something gave me without owing it the rest of my life.

Maybe that's why writing these Sunday letters has felt so good. They are giving me life again! It reminds me of the internet I fell in love with in the first place.

There are over 50,000 of us here now, and I think so many of you would read another woman's story and think, Oh my gosh. Me too!

That's what I've been missing, not more followers, not more reach.

More connection.

I miss those smaller corners of the internet where we chose to show up because we wanted to be there. Where conversations weren't competing with an algorithm, an ad, the latest outrage or an endless feed waiting to pull us somewhere else (or make us feel bad about our lives).

A place where we could slow the conversation down enough to actually hear each other. I've started wondering what it would look like to create something like that again.

A place outside of social media where we could share our breadcrumbs, talk about what we're trying, swap recommendations, encourage each other, ask questions and have some of these conversations together instead of everything happening privately in my inbox.

Somewhere that feels a little like those early blogging days. Just with better technology. 😂

And, well...all of this has gotten me thinking about what it might look like to create a little corner like that for us.

I've been quietly working on something, but I'm giving myself permission not to rush it. I want it to feel right, not just be ready.

I'll tell you more when it is. I have a feeling some of you are going to want to pull up a chair. ❤️

Until then, keep sending me your breadcrumbs. I really enjoy reading them.

🌱 This Week's Breadcrumb

This week, pay attention to the places you're spending your attention.

Not in a "delete all your apps and throw your phone into a lake" kind of way. 😂 (although I’ve been tempted…)

Just notice.

What leaves you feeling more like yourself when you're done - and what consistently leaves you feeling like less?

Maybe there's one tiny adjustment you want to make.

That's enough.

xo,

Alison