Netflix's Forever & the In-Between

Have y’all watched Forever on Netflix?

Maybe you have, and I’m late to the party. Or maybe you haven’t gotten around to it—life’s busy, and there’s always a laundry list of shows to watch.

When I found out that Mara Brock Akil had adapted Judy Blume’s Forever for the screen, I had to watch. Holy shit, this show was so tastefully done. The parent/child relationship even made me tear up a few times.

Now that I’m a mom, it made me reflect on love—how it shows up, how it evolves, and what I hope for my child. The way the parent and child characters loved each other stayed with me:

They talked with respect, even when it was hard.
They owned their mistakes instead of casting blame.
They chose the harder right over the easier wrong.
They trusted—not blindly, but bravely.
They took time to listen, really listen.
They tried to understand, not just be understood.
They knew when to let go.
They paid attention to the little things, the unspoken things.
They made each other better.

Love is… complicated, and this series captured it beautifully.

What’s a show that made you think differently about love?

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Love and Basketball hit differently as an adult, but it made me romanticize love.

🎨 Creative Tingz

Next month, I’m taking the SHRM-CP exam, and I’m currently knee deep in my job search—but lately, something else has been pulling at me even harder: creativity.

I’ve been posting more on my food page, writing this newsletter regularly, dreaming up new designs for my Etsy shop, and working with small businesses to shape their social media presence, among other things. The more I lean into it, the more I realize that I can do this. I just need to prioritize each dream in a way that makes sense over time to ensure that each thing gets the right amount of attention, and I’m not burning myself out.

This was such an adult moment of realization. You may hear this from someone else a million times, but it’s really on your timing for it to sink in.

Maybe it’s the downtime—the space to think without the daily grind of work rushing me along. Writing, designing, brainstorming—it all feels like unpacking my mind in the best way: my humor, my perspective, the weird little ideas I can’t shake.

There’s so much I want to do. So many ideas, so little time. Some days, that truth hits harder than others—how fleeting life is, how much we cram into these years. And then I look at my child and remember: we have so much life to live. So why not live it by actually creating the life that you want to live?

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