This year I didn't organize a holiday marketing blitz for The Locket Sisters, and at first that had me feeling perpetually behind. Kind of like I was failing as a business owner. I added it to my to do list every day, with various names and threats to myself to just complete the task, but eventually I came to realize that the pace capitalism doesn't sync with my lifestyle. And in 2020, does it sync with anyone's?

Most of the adults I know, maybe even every single one of them, are exhausted. This year has really fundamentally been a trip. A mindfuck. A spin, a dance, something beautiful, something tragic, the existence of a lot of things and the crumble of many more. 

By the luck of something divine, my work as a locket maker has continued to grow this year. More and more and more each month. I'm not doing anything better or different or smarter. I just happened to start a business that's all done online for my customers, ordering from the PJs even during quarantine at home, and I have a studio that's big and spacious and just mine for making lockets. And I started this business long ago enough that I'm established enough during this tumultuous year to just keep pushing through. That timing, however diving or miraculous, has been a blessing for my family, my mental wellness, and hopefully for you, too, knowing you can still get a custom made locket even despite 2020.

But that pushing through, that capitalistic pace that remains unforgiving and unrelenting even as schools are shut down, as businesses close their doors for good, as people become ill and many even don't survive, as a human rights movement demanding basic decency for black life, as all of these systems break and fall as the revealing pandemic peels back layer after layer disfunction, of oppression, or stale policy, we are expected to continue to press on as though nothing is happening at all. As though it's all just another day. Nothing to see here. 

And perhaps the only reason I feel brave enough to reject this notion that we must keep up with capitalism even as so much is crumbling is because my work is succeeding. If I wasn't doing well, would I be brave enough to call out this backwards expectation pressed upon each of us, and perhaps even pressed upon us by ourselves? We participate in this idea, we are the idea, swallowed for generations that our value sits in our ability to produce. It's the very position I'm in that keeps me feeling safe in capitalism - my success - that also gives me the chance to even reject it, too. 

The irony is that while I acknowledge being exhausted of the pace, I remain excited and committed to the work that I do. I still race to work every day. I still love making jewelry and hold dear the words and stories that you share when you order a locket. I love to read your words, to acknowledge your humanity. It reminds that me that the pace I keep is related to a drive to serve and honor and relate, not a drive to constantly grow a product business. 

In full, I reject the idea that your human worth is related to your productivity. I reject the idea that we must keep up with everything even as the things that help us keep up are not accessible. I reject the idea that we should drive ourselves mad, tired, into the ground pretending that it's all fine. It's not all fine. It will be, I firmly believe that, I know it even. 

And for now, the only way I know how to take action on rejecting this is to let go of the idea that I should have put together a great big holiday marketing blitz for you. It's gonna be fine. We already are working extra to keep up with your beautiful gifts and stories and orders, and that's enough. That's enough for me, for The Locket Sisters, for Mandy who makes lockets with me, for my family, for my community, and for what feels good as a business owner pushing through in a pandemic.

Of all the years of my life, and there have been 37 of them, this has been the most beautiful, painful, clearing, confusing, expanding, contracting, challenging year of them all. If we can survive it in one piece, maybe we'll come out the other end better than we entered it. With clarity on what's most important to each of us, what we value the most, how to exist in the world we want to live in. 

Warmly,

Allyssa