As a teenager, I used to read magazines and save them.

Early in my career, I used to keep a file of helpful resources that I’d received via email.

In the heyday of blogs, I carefully subscribed to each of my favorites via RSS and, via a feed reader, pored over articles at my desk during lunch. (If I were ten years younger, they’d have been YouTube videos, and if I were ten years younger than that, they’d have been TikToks.)

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For so long, I didn’t create things on a consistent basis.

All I did was look at other stuff and get frustrated with how bad it was.

Bad music, bad Instagram posts, bad YouTube videos. You name it, I judged it.

I even judged other people for liking it. “Why does this person have so many followers?”

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Back in Atlanta after some time away, I am catching up on the changes.

I walked past a new development on the way to another new development and saw tidy signs to the left of each front door of a row of townhomes. "Private Residence," each sign proclaimed, in white lettering on a black background. A compulsive reader, I couldn't help scanning each one as I went by: Private Residence, Private Residence, Private Residence, Private Residence.

I chuckled, imagining my own tiny home in Maine, a house that couldn’t possibly be anything else, with a "private residence" sign in front of it. I could put one next to the lilac bush, or maybe by the boat wintering alongside the driveway.

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Many people go broke seeking to manifest the trappings of wealth.

They buy cars and homes they can just barely make the monthly payments for, and nobody knows how far they are stretching. They put clothes, decor, and nice vacations on the credit card to complete the picture.

Maybe someone else then looks at the results of this indebtedness and sees an aspirational example, and the cycle repeats.

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In sixth grade, I distinctly remember a classmate looking at my legs in disgust. "They're so hairy," he said. That's when I learned that the natural way that the hair grows on my body is unacceptable.

By seventh grade, I had corrected this egregious violation of American female beauty standards. A couple of girls asked me (why?), "Do you shave your legs?"

"Yes," I said.

"Does your mom know?" was the follow-up question (why?).

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