Styled by McKenz Turns Nine
They say time flies when you’re having fun…. and it must be true because it feels like just yesterday we were celebrating Styled by turning one and somehow we’re nearing double digits. Nine years ago today I launched www.styledbymckenz.com and my world was forever changed. How lucky I am to have my childhood dream turn into my day job.
I’ve always been a chronically nostalgic person, consciously aware that each moment is simply that, just a present, passing, blip of time. As a kid, I wished more than anything I could savor these big feelings and emotions, find a way to capture them, and bottle them up for later. Perhaps one rainy day I’d want to pull them out and look back, to relive even if just for a second, what it felt like to be me all those years ago.
As a teen, I wanted nothing more than to have an online diary of my parents when they were my age. How epic would it have been to look back on their lives and really get to know who they were, and what they were going through at the same time? Were they feeling the same growing pains as me? Were they too holding onto these years, worried they’d pass by too fast if they didn’t savor every second? I ached for versions of them I didn’t even know.
It was one of the reasons why I chose, on my eighteenth birthday, to buy my very first vlog camera. A Canon G7X with a prized $500 I had saved. Wouldn’t it be timeless to have an online diary cataloging all of life’s ups and downs?
So often I am so engrossed in what I’m doing that I forget I’ve done that very thing. Somewhere amidst all of the outfit of the days, week in my life vlogs, and get ready with mes I’ve curated my very own online diary. To be honest, it is so rare that I slow down and reread it. Really soak in this whole story I’ve written for myself.
Somewhere throughout the years, I’ve created this unspoken tradition where I neglect any New Year’s Eve plans that may have been thrown my way and I queue up a sappy playlist on Spotify and I spend hours sifting through it all. Spending time with each version of myself I’ve grown to love over the years. Feeling everything I was going through, smiling and laughing and crying at all of these moments that somehow I’ve so effortlessly captured without even realizing it. It is my one day to really take a step back and realize what I’ve built. It’s like one big emotional rollercoaster bleeding out around me.
Today it is December 31, 2024, nine years later to the day of when I wrote that very first blog post. I am not on my grandma’s living room floor, I am on my own. It is the first night in my new apartment. Hours ago I moved from my childhood home in Maryland to Tampa, Florida. Right now I have nothing here besides a pink couch and a car full of clothes. I am 15 hours away from the only home I’ve ever known.
With the exception of a few people I met during one of my visits, I am all by myself. And despite all of this I can’t help but look around and think where the hell would I be right now if I hadn’t taken that leap of faith and hit publish all those years ago.
How different would my life be right now if I hadn’t posted what outfit I wore to school on Wednesday or what shampoo I loved that month? Would I have been a writer, a teacher, a photographer? Somehow I’ve ended up as them all. This year I have become so increasingly aware that in this lifetime we are given hundreds of choices, over and over again, and yet all it takes is one to change your life.
One decision to change the trajectory of your entire story.
It’s this overwhelming feeling like who would I even be if I wasn’t Styled by McKenz? This character, this safe haven, this escape that I created all those years ago. Somehow it’s become so woven into my being that it’s all I am. She’s all I know. She is everything I am.
I know at this moment I am technically alone but I feel so excited that I am here with this new opportunity in this new place I am choosing to make a home. A home I chose because it makes me feel so creatively energized, so alive, so in love with the root of it all. Suddenly I am fourteen again just so thrilled by the thought that a stranger might like my outfit, so eager to sit down and pour out my heart to whoever might listen. And how could I be alone when I’m with the largest life in the room, this loud, passionate, driven character I brought to life 9 years ago?
Do you have any idea how lucky I am because of it? God I just want to cry.
The more people I meet the more I realize some people go their entire life without knowing what’s truly calling them. And those who do, rarely choose to follow it. What a gift it’s been to have the courage to chase my childhood dream, to nurture it into my full-blown day job. And it’s so much more than just a day job it’s my life.
I’m looking around and I’m realizing this is my life.
This is what I’ve spent all these years working so hard for. To see the world and have deep connections pass through me and the strangers I meet. To wear a sparkly dress on a Tuesday just because it’s a Tuesday. To move to the beach on my own because I simply can. To keep pouring into something because it keeps filling me up.
Nine years of Styled by McKenz, and I’m a better me because of it.
I have a pretty good feeling about double digits…. I just know year ten is going to be our best one yet. Thank you, truly, from the bottom of my heart for your endless love and support that shows no bounds. I owe everything I am to you and I just could not be more grateful to be sharing this journey with you. There are no words for my love but just know there’s not one passing day that I’m not thinking of you.
All my love, McKenz
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- year three
