Life Changing

THANK YOU!
A little over a week ago, I shared this post and so many of you donated! Really appreciate the support of my friend Kylee. She’s only $200 away from her goal, so if you know anyone who might want to donate, please share!!!
GoFundMe Link

– Jason

Almost exactly thirteen years ago, I ordered some soap through an online vendor I found via Twitter (ahh, the sweet unsullied days of 2010-era Twitter – how I miss you!). It was shaped like a brain and was advertised as “Abby Normal” – which if you’re a fan of Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein, you’ll immediately understand. This was back at the beginning of being able to buy cool things online that reflected what you loved about nerd culture. I bought it because the idea tickled me and when I received it, it was exactly as described – with one exception. It was advertised as “raspberry scented” but this wasn’t just some generic, artificial raspberry scent, this soap smelled like actual raspberries! This may sound like a small thing, but the idea that something as prosaic as soap could smell so good was a revelation for me. I’d spent my entire life hating almost every scented thing because of how fake and obnoxious most scents were, and here was something that actually smelled real.

I mean, Han in Carbonite Soap – this is what true genius looks like!

Truly blown-away, I reached out to the seller on Twitter and thanked her profusely for such a phenomenal product. We started talking about scents and how she created her products and what started her on this as a business. And that was the start of what has become one of the most important relationships of my adult life.

On the face of it, we couldn’t be more different. She lived in the Midwest and I’d spent almost my entire life living outside DC. She had a ton of tattoos and I had none. She had her first child when was still a teenager herself and I was almost 32 when we had our oldest. And I was more than a decade older than her. But despite those differences, she and I were incredibly like-minded on a base level and there was a connection that established itself almost immediately. Kylee was, and continues to be, one of the most “awake” people I’ve ever met – and as with me, that heightened awareness is a double-edged sword that can also lead to anxiety – which we also bonded over. We talked a lot about our kids (who are similar ages) and the challenges of parenting. We geeked out over the things we were geeky about and shared things we thought the other would like.

We talked about how her son’s allergies and skin sensitivities led her to making her own soap so he could get some relief, and how she turned that into a successful business. I talked about my own experiences with my daughter’s food allergies and how that drove me to find new ways to cook and new recipes to try.

The House that Soap Built Bought

We also discussed the graphic design of her packaging and her website, we talked about what could be the coolest scents to add to her products, and how she wanted to grow her business. I helped out with a little editing and writing, but mostly was just a cheerleader for her and her business. I introduced her to my wife, who through the power of spreadsheets, helped Kylee contain the ever-present chaos of trying to run a small business. When an opportunity came up for Kylee to buy a historic but run-down 1917-era house in a small town in Iowa, my wife and I helped her run the numbers and find ways for it all to work.

Over time, she became like family – so much so, I coined a term “made-up pseudo-sibling” (or #MUPS, as it was often shortened to on Twitter). I always wanted a younger sibling and Kylee was (and continues to be) the best younger sister anyone could ever have. When she first got to come visit and stay with us, it was truly like having close family come for a visit – but you know, the good kind of family.

Her resourcefulness is sort of legendary. Kylee ran successful campaigns to raise funds to turn the ballroom of her historic house into a work space for her soap business and to restore a VW bus. She worked with other crafters and looked for ways to improve all their businesses and was always cheerleading others on. Hell, when the local library was getting rid of their card catalogs (yes, physical card catalogs), she rescued them and turned them into soap storage – if that’s not an example of the amount of awesome here, I don’t know what is.

For years, she continually grew her business, branching out into handmade cosmetics and beauty products. She taught herself graphic and web design to manage and improve her online business. For the entire time I’ve known her, she has been driven to create the best – the best version of herself as a person, a wife, and as a parent. The best products she could sell. The best house for her family and her business.

GoFundMe Link

So why am I telling this story? Kylee has run into a rough patch recently. In the nineties, she was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and has been more or less successfully dealing with that for the better part of three decades. However, more recently, she’s had issues with alcohol addiction stemming from trying to deal with anxiety and some sensory processing problems and she’s trying to get the help she needs. With the mental health system in the U.S. being what it is, even when you overcome that first huge hurdle and try and seek help, you’re stuck trying to find a way to pay for it, and that’s why I am asking for whatever help you can send Kylee’s way. It’s hard to deal with mental health issues at the best of times, and Kylee has always both been honest about her struggles and worked hard to deal with them – money shouldn’t stand in the way of that, but that’s the American health care system for you.

She has always worked so hard at everything she’s done, surpassing and breaking the expectations put on her. I have no doubt she can do the same with the problems she’s now facing, she just needs the tools (or should I say tool$) to be able to do it.

When Kylee and I first came into each other’s lives, I was not yet forty – basically the same age Kylee is now. My life was good, I had my health, a wonderful wife and kids, a steady and fulfilling job – but I was feeling the onset of the cliched staleness of middle age. Kylee and her presence in my life sparked a renewed sense of exploring life, who I was, and who I wanted to be. She literally changed my life and the way I look at the world in all the best ways possible and that’s why I’m trying to help her in whatever way I can – she not only changed my life, she changed me and I would not be who I am without her.