shoutout iowa

i remember the first sale.

it was 2am. i was still awake because i was always still awake. my phone buzzed and etsy said someone in iowa had ordered a shirt.

i sat there for a second just staring at it.

a real person. in iowa. who had never met me. who found something i made in my storage unit at 2am and decided it was worth their money.

packed it the next morning on that same folding table. wrote a little note on a piece of paper i tore from a notebook because i couldn't afford custom packaging. taped it shut with packing tape that kept getting stuck to itself. walked it to the post office.

that was the whole operation.

then another order came. then another. nothing crazy ,, we're not talking overnight success. we're talking like, enough orders that i started running out of blanks and had to make a decision about whether to reinvest the $40 i had made or just be happy it happened at all.

i reinvested the $40.

the heat press stayed on for so many consecutive hours that summer that it left a permanent scorch mark on the wall behind it. still there. kind of proud of it honestly.

nobody tells you what it feels like when something you made with no money and no plan starts to mean something to people. it's a lot. it's really a lot.

we're still figuring it out. probably always will be. but iowa, if you're reading this ,, thank you. <33