Hi, I’m Indie.
There is a part of every reinvention nobody writes about. Not the before, when you knew exactly who you were. Not the after, when you can tell the story cleanly at a dinner party. The part in between, where you have already given up the old version and the new one has not shown up yet.
I call it the during. It is where I live. It is what this whole thing is about.
Let me get the resume out of the way, because it explains why I have opinions, but it is not the interesting part. I was a CPA. Then in 2008 I lost the vision in my left eye, and a doctor asked me what I put on my skin. I had no good answer. That question is the reason for everything that came after. I started a clean beauty company in 2009, from my kitchen, with no background in beauty, back when almost nobody knew what clean beauty meant. I built it globally. Since then I have spoken at TEDx, joined the board of the Autoimmune Association, and picked up an honorary doctorate from SUNY Oswego, which I am still not entirely convinced they meant to give me.
Here is what the resume leaves out. I am 54. I live with seven autoimmune conditions and a third brain tumor we are watching. I am rebuilding, again, from a farm in Patterson, New York, with dirt under my fingernails and no clear picture of what this becomes.
The Indie Edit is for women who have already done the thing. You built the company, or ran the department, or raised the humans, or all three at once. You are competent. You are respected. And somewhere in the last few years the ground moved underneath you, and now you are between versions of yourself, with almost nobody talking honestly about this part.
I am not going to tell you I have it sorted. I am one chapter ahead of you at best, and some days I am not even that. What I can do is tell you the truth about the during while I am still in it, instead of waiting until it resolves into a tidy story I can sell you.
The internet is full of the after. This is the middle.
What you’ll find here:
Home, inside and out. Dragonfly Farm in real time. What I am growing, what I am cooking, what died. Nothing wasted, mostly out of conviction and occasionally out of cheapness.
Life. Reinvention without the theater. Identity drag, the messy middle, Wellth (my word for an abundance of health, wellness, and purpose), and what it actually costs to back yourself in midlife.
Body. Autoimmune reality, navigating a medical system that does not much listen to women our age, and energy management over maximization. Told honestly, not heroically.
Community. Good Morning Sunshines. The part where you talk back, and I read every word of it.
Aging is a privilege. I am not interested in reversing it. I am interested in what we get to build with the runway we have, which is shorter than it used to be and still more than enough.
If you are in the part nobody can see yet, come sit down. I am still figuring this out too.
With love from Dragonfly Farm,
Indie
Think of this as my journal in real time. If you want to read along as the story unfolds, hit subscribe.
