A life audit for betting on yourself.
Musings from the most isolated city in the world, including how a lot can happen in a year—especially if you bet on yourself.
Happy Sunday, friends.
When I last checked in two Sundays ago, I was on my way to board the longest flight in the world. Tonight, I’m back for my forth (!!) stay of this trip in the most isolated city in the world: Perth. The logistics on this trip have been as wild as Western Australia itself, but that’s the entire point. I’ve learned so much these past two weeks and am beyond grateful for the opportunity to have visited a place so few others have.
We’re headed to airport shortly to do it all in reverse (Perth-Singapore-New York), only this time, instead of a two-night stay at the Raffles Singapore to break up the trip, we’re just stepping out of the airport during our six-hour layover for a brief meeting before turning right back around.
Door to door, if we’re lucky, we have between 34 and 35 hours of travel ahead of us to get home on Monday night. This kind of marathon travel day is emblematic of what this particular trip has looked like at every stage—a whole lot of moving around, continual packing and unpacking, early-morning wake-ups, flat whites on repeat, too many skipped workouts, and a fair bit of wine to wash down each indulgent meal. I’ll be sharing more about the highlights in our SmartFlyer coverage, but the handful of pics below are a bit of a glimpse into all that we got to experience in Western Australia.
And perhaps because so much of this trip has been spent in motion, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about time—how quickly seasons of life shift, and how much can quietly change in the span of a single year…a concept we’re going to dig into later in today’s letter.
But first, for those observing, Happy Mother’s Day. And for those missing someone today, I’m sending all my love. This week marks two years since my nana passed away, and markers like this make her absence feel especially loud. I know for my mom and aunts, Mother’s Day now carries an ache alongside the joy. We miss her every single day, but especially on days like today.
In honor of my own momma—who I unfortunately won’t get to hug today—I wanted to share this conversation I had with her last summer as we celebrated a milestone birthday. Returning from this trip, I feel all the more called to plan intentional time with her knocking off some more bucket list items (in December, we got to go to South Australia, Tasmania, and Sydney!) together, because as they say…the days are long and the years are short.
A lot can happen in a year.
I felt particularly compelled to write about this topic today because one year ago, on May 5th 2025, I shared the new look and feel of The Sunday Series. In that same edition, I shared my first installment of “Between the Lines,” my interview series here on TSS, and in it, a conversation with Tinx. In that same letter, I was also incredibly proud to share glimmers of my newly imaged brand kit—the one I invested in having created with a graphic designer who brought so many of my yellow-hued dreams to life.
When I took the plunge on a rebrand last spring, there was no guarantee anyone would care. At the time, it honestly felt quite indulgent to pour four figures into a newsletter that was still (and still is!!!) very niche. There was no certainty that doing so would help it grow. No big business plan sitting behind it all. Just a gut feeling that this little corner of the internet mattered enough to me to keep nurturing it.
In the past 365, I’ve gotten to share conversations with some dream guests, including chatting about creativity and platform diversification with Julia & Thomas Berolzheimer, what it means to be ‘older hotter and wiser’ with Serena Kerrigan, all things travel writing with Monica Mendal, the origin story of Sunday Scaries with founder Will deFries, honor female-owned restaurants across New York with Courtney Presley and, even do a fun collab on the art of romanticizing your life with my dear friend, Caylee Ashwell.
Perhaps most surprisingly, a fair number of letters have reached upwards of 20,000 and even 30,000 readers, including The 26 small upgrades that make my everyday life a whole lot better and 88 *NICHE* Gift Ideas for Very Particular People. And beyond gift guides, I’ve poured my personal recommendations into travel guide after travel guide, including one covering my favorite place: my very own neighborhood.
But when I zoom out, the steady growth of this letter—an 84% increase in subscribers from this May to last—didn’t come from any one massively successful post. It came from repetition. From sitting down to write week after week, even when I wasn’t sure anyone was reading or if what I had to say mattered. It came from slowly learning what resonated, and trusting that if I kept showing up consistently enough, eventually the right people would keep finding and sharing The Sunday Series with people they love.
That’s the thing I’ve been reflecting on most lately: meaningful growth rarely arrives all at once. More often, it compounds quietly. Brick by brick. Conversation by conversation. One Sunday at a time.
And I think it’s safe to say this thought process—the value of showing up again and again—applies to far more than newsletters. Careers. Creativity. Friendships. Healing. Confidence. Ultimately, becoming the kind of person you want to be.
So if there’s something in your own life you’ve been wanting to build, begin, or invest in (even if it currently feels small and maybe even slightly irrational!), consider this your reminder that a year from now, your life could look wildly different simply because you decided to keep tending to your proverbial garden.
As a special scoop for my paid subscribers, today, I wanted to share the framework I’ve been thinking through when it comes to betting on yourself. Not in a hyper-optimized hustle culture sense, but in the quieter, more practical ways in which we decide what’s worth nurturing over time. I think these Qs make great journal prompts if you’re a pen-and-paper person like me!
What am I repeatedly drawn toward?
I don’t think the things we continuously come back to are random. Usually, they’re clues. The ideas, environments, and ways of living that consistently pull at us often point toward the kind of life we’re actually meant to build.
For me, it’s always been writing, storytelling, community, travel, freedom, movement, sisterhood, and reading. Even when life gets noisy, these are the key motivators I find myself reaching for and working towards every day.
