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What I Have Learned During My First 5 Months of Self Employment

This month, May 2026, is my fifth month of being self-employed. For the past five years, I have worked a full-time job in addition to being self-employed. So technically, my work load is still about the same, but the payoff Is priceless! When making the decision to work from home full-time, I had to consider a few things.

Sobriety, I’m getting close to three years of sobriety, but with no set start time to my day Would I be able to maintain A sober lifestyle when no one was watching I had a lot of support at my day job to keep me accountable, It turns out that while that little voice occasionally reminds me how much I enjoyed alcohol, I hated almost everything about alcohol and it’s impact on my body, my mind and my life. I love who I am sober. I feel happy. I feel healthy and I feel whole.

The big one that everyone wanted to discuss was the financial piece of giving up a full-time job with benefits and vacation time to become self-employed and have a wildly fluctuating income. First of all the full-time job with the company that I had been employed by for 13 years didn’t pay that well in fact my first month on only fans back in 2021, I made slightly less than a month at my full-time job. Online incomes do fluctuate and I’m not making any recommendations for anyone, I can only go on my experience however, by the time I left my full-time job, I was earning at least double the annual salary of that job online.

Health insurance, I was able to purchase comparable dental and vision insurance privately. In all honesty, I don’t have health insurance currently because the cost of the marketplace was quite high for the coverage you receive. Our local hospitals and walk-in clinics currently offer a 50 to 65% Discount and payment plans to those who self-pay. Before leaving my full-time job and insurance, I had my physical, my cologuard test, pelvic exam and a mammogram. Again, I make no recommendations for anyone else. Anything can happen at any time such as cancer or a car accident, you name it, but this is the decision I have made for now, for me personally.


Coworkers, this was the biggest surprise of them all I had about 65 coworkers at the company I worked for. I worked in HR so I interacted with a lot of people on a regular basis. I also worked the retail end of the business, customer service, etc. I was surrounded by people all day long. Would I be able to go from that to being the only one home all day with no one but a little parakeet to keep me company? At first it just felt like a week off I went places I listened to music, I made great food. I had fun and I worked on my online job, but I found that that didn’t take as much time as I thought it was going to. I began wondering if I’d acted too quickly if I should’ve just kept both jobs? After five months, I can confidently say that I have more than enough work to do online to fill my days, but I also have the flexibility to spend more time with my daughters, with my father and to talk to my sister on the phone.

The final thing I considered was, what would people say? How could I explain what I do do I have to explain what I do? Everyone at my old job knew that I worked online but what about people? I’m not going forward? As it turns out, no one really cares there’s a lot going on in the world and I am very rarely asked what I do for work. A lot of the people I interact with are online And understand how many people make their living as a brand ambassador, selling products online, Influencers, and content creators. It’s a unique time in history, very few people work a Monday through Friday 9 to 5 job anymore.

The unexpected benefit that I never considered in my decision-making process was that by working from home and setting my own schedule would give me a life that I’ve always wanted. A life with far less anxiety and stress than I could’ve ever imagined. I was prepared to have some financial issues. I was prepared to be frustrated by how things were going business wise, but I’m happy to report that at least five months in business is going really well and I am experiencing so much less drama and anxiety than I have ever had at any point in my life, that I can remember. So I’ve been thinking a lot about why that is, this feels like a big step,a scary move, a financial risk and yet I feel like I’m where I belong and I have more peace.

I’ve come to two conclusions: One I left a job that wasn’t really paying that much to begin with and it wouldn’t be that difficult to replace it if this current business falls apart. And two, I was experiencing more stress than I realized about things that had nothing to do with my real life or my future. I was immersed daily in petty drama that seemed so important at the time and when I got away from it, I realized none of it mattered and it’s all still happening right now, every day I’m just not around it anymore and that brings me so much joy!

Thank you for listening đź’‹

Patsy

AI, Virtual, Online and Human Interaction

I tried to book and appointment with my eye doctor, I’d been putting off making appointments getting lazy, I need to schedule a dental cleaning as well. I desperately needed more contacts and the appointments were booking out to August or later. Turns out the website I get contacts from can do an eye exam $20 using my phone camera! Within and hour and without leaving the house my rx was renewed for two more years and my new supply of contacts were shipping to my front door in a few days they would arrive (I went with free shipping or they would be here even sooner)

During the pandemic we were introduced to contactless…everything, so we no longer had to sign for anything or leave our homes. Everything is digital we don’t develop film, we don’t cash checks or even receive physical checks most of the time. We get books, music, movies, pictures and money delivered wireless to us wherever we are. This is an introverts dream, or in my case an adhd dream, I don’t have to remember to fill my rx only when someone is there to answer the phone I can do it on my chart from my phone when I think of it at 3 am! While all this is progress, time saving and efficient, is it healthy?

Around Christmas 2025 I started a new X account called devoted mommy 72 a play on my devoted friend 72. I was thinking it may appeal to those who like the whole stepmom thing. What I found was that yes I was getting a lot of subscribers on my only fans for those who are interested in the stepmom vibe but the bigger take away was people wanted connection. If you’re on social media these days, you see a lot of fake posts you see entire accounts that are AI generated without a real human being part of it at all. I read an article today about a student who put himself through college by creating a blonde conservative woman who appeal to wealthy conservative men. The account was incredibly successful and had social media and even an only fans, but the woman never existed. It was a teenage guy. Stories like this give us pause, we all want to believe the person we’re talking to is a real person. We want them to be the person we think we are talking to, but beyond that we now have to verify if they’re even a person at all or if some program is answering us and interacting with us!

So what I accidentally discovered was the people are longing for connection. They’re longing for authentic real human beings to interact with. The common phrase for this style of interaction is called “Hope core”. Post pandemic. The original host of Blue’s Clues Steve Burns created an account where he checked in with all of us to see if we were doing OK because there was a lot going on. His account went viral people were longing for that authentic encouragement coming from someone they could trust Steve from Blue’s Clues,adults now ,that didn’t stop us from being comforted by Steve. He’s real. He’s someone we can trust.

When I decided in January to work from home full-time, I started looking at all of the accounts. I started looking at all the trends and the viral videos I looked at the people who are using AI agencies, chat, bots, etc., for their online accounts. What I quickly discovered was that I was already doing what people wanted. I was already giving them the authentic connection. I just needed to do more of it. So I started making a lot of YouTube videos, letting people know that their messages would always be answered by me that I would never hire an agency. It would never be a chat bot or a paid chat or talking to them and I would never share what they told me with other people. In short, they can trust me. I’m here I’m real and I’m not going anywhere.
Thank you for listening.đź’‹

Patsy

Progress, Not Perfection

It took me a while to understand that perfectionism could exist in an

environment where things were very messy and chaotic. Let me explain, I always assumed a perfectionist would have a clean house, finances in order, clean desk or car etc. So when I started following a self help blogger known as the Flylady many years ago, and she mentioned not letting perfection get in the way I thought but this is for people who are struggling we aren’t even close to perfect! We’re a mess and we are looking for help! Then a reader gave an example one that resonated with me she had an antique piece of furniture in her home she had splashed, I believe it was gravy, down the front of it, knowing that it was an antique and an heirloom she wanted to clean it the perfect way and not damage the finish. So she decided she would research the best way to clean that wood. In time, her desire to clean it the perfect way left the stain on the furniture for quite some time until one day, she took a cloth with warm water and wipe the stain away.

Something about that simple antidote hit me so hard when I realized I’m waiting for the perfect way to do things and therefore I’m not doing them!

From that point on, I realized a lot of what was holding me back in life was the desire to find the perfect solution to the problems I faced whether big or small. I know I’ve heard the story before, but it really was one of the most pivotal moments in my life when I was going through my divorce and he was beginning to take legal action against me and I had not hired a lawyer yet I had no idea what I was going to do and I was listening to divorce podcasts and talking to everyone I knew and trying to figure out what my next step was going to be when my friend said just do something or you’re going to lose everything. You don’t have to know everything right now. Just do the next thing. She’ll never know what those words meant to me and how they have carried over into the rest of my life and in a way there’s somewhat responsible for where I am now and anywhere that I’ll be going forward. So applying for the full-time job, starting an only fans, hiring a lawyer, starting a GoFundMe for the down payment of the lawyer, getting a separate post office box, starting a bank account of my own and all those steps I took to get me where I am now or because of that one phrase.

I think about that a lot, am I waiting for the perfect way the perfect plan, the perfect situation before I can act? This past January I took action. I stepped out. I gave my notice at my job and I decided to work online from home full-time! I’ve learned so much in these past four months about myself and others but mostly about how I do things or don’t do things. I’ve developed a system for my business that has worked wonders for me. I’m finding a little life hacks to work around who I am and with my strengths and my weaknesses but I’m also learning to just do it, to just go for it and just do the next thing, because it’s progress not perfection that gets things done!
Thank you for listening,

Patsy đź’‹

Healing and Harm

We all like the idea of healing, healing is synonymous with wellness, we want to live the best life we can live. We wanna feel our best,and look our best. We want the energy to do the things that bring us joy, we want to be able to do the things that earn us income and provide for our families. There are different ways that we can heal we can heal, physically from an illness or we can heal our bodies from strenuous activity by resting, we can heal ourselves with calmness or meditation, and we can heal ourselves from past emotional trauma and experiences through therapy. However another part that I never really considered. Not really, not deeply and that’s prevention.

Healing from a long-term illness ,healing from the loss of a loved one, healing from the end of a marriage or saying goodbye to a chapter of our lives whether good or bad. The opposite of healing is harmful or causing harm. The Hippocratic oath states and I’m paraphrasing here, but basically that the physician will do no harm. But what if we were to take a Hippocratic oath about the care of ourselves would we drink, would we smoke? Would we stay up late? Would we eat at Taco Bell? Would we stay in a relationship that wasn’t good for us? Would we continue to work a job that caused us incredible amounts of stress? Would we go into debt? Would we drive recklessly?

i’ve been thinking a lot lately about the harm that we do to ourselves. I’ve been reading about certain conditions, such as arthritis, and how yes some of it is genetic, but some of it can be caused by the things that we put into our body or the way that we move our bodies or don’t move our bodies or the amount of weight that we carry or don’t carry. The kinds of food that we eat, the things that we drink, the drugs that we take,the places we go, the environment of our homes. The stress that we were under all of these things play a role in our health as to our genetics so what about prevention? What if we had to swear a hippocratic oath for the care of ourselves, what would we change?

I don’t have all the answers. I don’t really have any answers what I have is a thought, an idea a perspective, to look at the flipside of our lives our responsibility for us. It’s not just health it’s finances, relationships, religion, politics, society, the environment and all the areas of our life, and what we do about it, how we choose to spend our time, where we go, what we do, who we do it with, and what we put into our bodies all play a role in our overall care of ourselves and if we were under that oath could we honestly say that we do no harm?

Just a thought,thanks for listening!
Patsy

Time Flies: Weekend Musings

Too late? The picture above was taken a decade ago! Time is moving quickly, the more I follow the Gen X side of social media the more I see posts screaming that if you’re 50 you have 26 yrs left! 26 years I’ve been a mom for 25 yrs and that flew by! I’ve been self employed for 4 months now, seems like just yesterday I was announcing that decision, but it was actually about 6 months ago! I’ve been divorced for 4 yrs next month! Okay you didn’t need a blog post to see that I’m old but let’s look at the other side of time!

Let’s look at some recent new beginnings and how old I was!

48 years old: Started my Only Fans account in the first 3 months I made it into the top 1.3% (currently sitting at top 2% but I will take that for now)

50 years old Divorce was finalized after 25 yrs of marriage my divorce 4 years in the making finally complete)

53 years old Quit my job of 13 years to go full time online as a content creator and a host of other side jobs, but I’m making my own schedule and can help care for my elderly father.

54 and beyond? Who knows but I have learned that it’s never too late to make changes, big changes and get the life you have always dreamed of second chances are real , as long as you are on this earth, you can define what’s too late and what isn’t.

Looking back decisions I made at 23 yrs old when I thought it was too late to go to college or start a new career, those decisions are THREE DECADES old now! What can I start today that I can look back on and be glad I made those decisions? Where do I want to be next week? Next month? Next year? I can’t wait to see where I go next!
Thank you for listening đź’‹

Patsy

What is Beautiful?

Maybe, I’m just an old soul. Maybe, I want the best of both worlds. I like having an only fans and I love the convenience of the Internet and all the apps on my phone but part of me likes doing things the old-fashioned way. When I think back to how things used to be, it was rare to hear about surgery, lip fillers, fake boobs, it was easy to find someone without a tattoo, but now it seems that everyone, regardless of income is finding the money to alter their appearance it seems like we have less variety and more of a standard of what is beautiful.

When I was younger, I had a children’s book called, What is Beautiful? By Robert Sargent, it was a 1970’s or 60’s storybook the plot of the book, was a turtle and a rabbit discussing what it beautiful, but they can’t agree and it finally ends with the conclusion that beauty is in the eye of the beholder! This was a fairly deep thought for my young mind, but I thought about it a lot over the years. Like many of those books from childhood they never left me completely. They formed who I was, even my online screen name is from a children’s book the devoted friend by Oscar Wilde. So, what is beautiful? Is it in the eye of the beholder?

We live in an age full of possibility the Internet has opened up a global marketplace. We can have clothing and beauty products from all over the world yet it seems like a few websites a few influencers determine what is beautiful to us. They’ve always been influences in our lives whether it was TV, movies, or magazines something has always helped to shape our idea of beauty. I’m now in my 50s. I don’t have anything to prove anymore. I don’t have to be popular. I feel like I finally reached an age where I can settle into who I am and what I enjoy and yes, some of that is nostalgia for the beauty trends that influenced me in the past. If you follow me on any of the social media platforms, you may have noticed that I have a love of thrift stores, antique shops, books, and yes, vinyl records.

And if you follow my spicier sites, you won’t find any tattoos, piercings apart from ears, no fake breasts, you’ll find a natural body of a 53 yr old woman with nostalgic memories of vintage playboy pinups. What is beautiful? Maybe we can just agree to disagree, except that it is indeed in the eye of the beholder.

Thank you for listening,

Patsy

How I Shower: What it Means

Sometimes I wonder if I’m just better off not knowing things and what those things actually say about me! Not long ago I had a conversation about two and three syllable car names and learned that Corvette is not pronounced “Cor ah vette” that sent me down a rabbit trail wondering what else have I been pronouncing wrong my entire life? I think we’ve all been having a conversation with someone just enjoying the day went out of the blue,they say something to imply that something that you have thought your entire life is actually incorrect. Sometimes we verbalize it,sometimes we discreetly get out our phone to fact check, but however we handle it we’re never quite the same afterwards. OK, I’m being dramatic but this morning I imagine my surprise when I was scrolling through Instagram and realized that not everyone showers the way I do!

It started innocently enough scrolling through Instagram, making my daily social media posts. I stumbled across a post that said showering backwards is a sign of neurodivergence. I took a deeper dive, what is meant by backwards? Apparently, this means facing away from the shower. Wait surely everyone faces away from the shower when showering I thought back to any commercial or movie clip I’ve seen where they facing the shower or facing away from the showerhead. It seems to me that my memory recalls them facing the showerhead. Anyone following my OF page knows that I face away from the shower head. Are they just being polite? No one’s ever questioned this decision are all of my followers of the neurodivergent type? Are we all just a happy little band of people showering in a way that conflicts with “normal society”?

I lost the next half hour of my life, reading articles about sensory overload, how warm water on the back can regulate the nervous system and make you feel safer. That neurodivergent people do not like having water in their face that they often use a handheld showerhead and that they prefer to shower with dim lights or no lights and need to use soaps that are calming. I thought about this for a while. Do I face away from the shower for any particular reason? Well yes I don’t want water in my face. Could I adjust the showerhead so that I didn’t get water in my face or stand at a different distance to prevent the water from being in my face? Again yes but why not just shower backward and is it backward or is it the correct way to shower? I’m going to put it to a question for all of you when you shower do you face the shower or only when rinsing that side is there a correct way to shower and how will we ever know the truth?

Thank you for listening ❤️

Patsy

Life in My 50’s : Chair Yoga


First of all, I have to say I really don’t feel like I’m in my 50s but I am! I will be 54 this September. Since entering my 50s, I have begun a series of changes some have lasted and some were discarded almost immediately but many are frequently revisited! I began doing chair yoga again. This is one of those things like many things that work really well for me and that I inexplicably stop doing just as I’m seeing results. Today is day 22 again I’ve been here before I made it 100 days I was seeing results and I quit.

So I’m starting over, are you seeing a pattern? The theme of my blog starting over? We have to find what works for us in life. And for me, it seems to be chair yoga so one of the reasons I’m doing this blog post today is for accountability. Hopefully if enough people ask me about it or check on me and make sure that I’m still doing it the longer I can stick with it. Sometimes I post pictures and well meaning people will tell me that I look great just the way I am but fitness isn’t just about appearance. I mean don’t get me wrong. It is a huge motivator for me to take off a little bit of this weight, but it’s about more than that, it’s about feeling my best. It’s about being able to sit for a long period of time and stand up and not feel that crushing pain in my knees or my back. It’s about finding a cool place to hike and actually going and enjoying nature and yeah, maybe I’m a little sore the next day but it’s a good kind of sore.

So I’ve decided to commit for the summer to work out every day and by work out every day. I mean I’m going to do a workout from the fit me app. I’m not selling anything. I’m just letting people know which app I use, but I’m sure there are many great apps out there and I’ve used several different ones but this is the one that I happen to be using right now. My plan is to complete one workout whether it’s five minutes or a half hour from the app every day and keep my streak going until my 54th birthday in September. That’s my goal! In addition to those workouts, any other hikes or walks or whatever that I do we’ll just be extra. I wanna see what kind of changes I can make. I’m also working on a couple other areas of my life. Many of you know that I’m under treatment for ADHD I take a low-dose medication every day, but I want to explore other things such as meditation different ways. I can organize my life to work for me and also exercise of course is a great way to deal with ADHD. I’m making some changes to my nutrition nothing radical, but just trying to increase the amount of plants that I eat in my daily diet. Don’t worry, you’ll still be seeing my car videos of me eating at Taco Bell on occasion I’m not a saint.

I have primarily created this blog to connect with other Gen Xers online, to share the memories, the struggles, and hopefully the inspiring solutions that we are experiencing together. So if this sounds like something you’re interested in welcome I’m glad you’re here. Let me know how you’re doing and how we’re getting through “this thing called life”!

Thank you for listening ❤️

Patsy

Blogging My Adventures

This past January I decided it was time to leave my full time job as a retail administrative assistant. After 13 years with the company and very little increase in pay, I knew it was time to move on. While I was grateful for my time with the company there was little opportunity for growth, personally, professionally or financially. I’ve been working online since January 2021 and right from the beginning, I was making more online than I was making at my full-time job often putting in as few hours as 15 to 20 per week online and almost doubling my salary of my full-time job. So the decision to leave was not a difficult one, at best all my dreams would come true at worst, I’d go back and get a similar job to what I was leaving. With a little to no risk involved I started my adventure and as part of that adventure I have decided to begin writing on my blog again. A couple of years ago I had this same blog it was monetized. It was beginning to earn money, and then it got demonetized the type of content I was creating violated some of the monetization policies. I tend to be a very all or nothing person and quickly became discouraged.

So here we are 2026 my fourth month of being self-employed and I’ve decided to pick up my virtual pen and begin sharing all of my scattered thoughts with you. I am keeping it in perspective. I don’t expect this to be award winning blog. I don’t expect to have a huge following, but what I am hoping to have is a small community of like-minded Gen Xers who may have found themselves in a similar position of starting over. Starting over with the original theme of the blog and I think it’s a good one when I started this blog as I was getting divorced or in the process of getting divorced, which took a really long time, thanks to Covid and now I’m restarting this blog to document starting my career over.
I am not claiming to be skilled in any way in blogging, computers, writing or even the ability tocommunicate my thoughts clearly I don’t know about spacing and double spacing. I wasn’t even good at typing when we had typewriter so I’m gonna do the best I can to put out a blog for you and I’m gonna try to do it every week and I hope you’ll stick around for a while.

Thank you for listening, Patsy.

7 Steps To Your Dream Life!

It’s time! The past few years have been about growth and change. Preparing for this moment. I’ve been doing a lot of work on myself. I’ve gotten sober! That was my step one for creating lasting change, eliminating my temptation to disappear into a bottle after a harsh defeat. Instead facing my fears and attacking them head on. Creating the life I want for myself for the rest of my life. This blog is about what I’m doing and how I’m doing it.

  1. I made a list of what wasn’t working . For me it was my heavy drinking, and poor sleep habits (partially caused by drinking) My periods of sinking into my problems through alcohol or sleeping away my weekends impacted my ability to earn and grow.
  2. Addressing the things I was avoiding. Really looking at my health, relationships, career and finances. I made appointments I’ve been putting off, medical, dental, vision etc. I looked at my earnings, and my debt. My assets and strengths and where I could improve.
  3. Eliminating or Detoxing parts of my life that didn’t benefit me but instead wasted time. This meant cutting out some people from my life that were having a negative impact on my mental health or were time wasters especially when it came to business.
  4. This kind of piggybacks number 3. Boundaries! I work full time outside of the home as well as about 30 plus hours a week at home. I was facing some serious burnout. Having my laptop, iPad or phone with me most of the time means I’m always getting messages, texts and emails. My day job is easier to unplug from but when working from home it’s hard for me to know when to take a day off. To further complicate matters I film a lot of what we do for digital content. I’m working to creat those boundaries of private and public.
  5. Accepting myself for who I am. That is not to say I won’t continue to grow as a person but it means being comfortable with who I am. Not everyone will like me . As a digital content creator on social media as well as on multiple adult platforms, everyone has their opinions about my nails, my hair and my body, what I show vs. what I should show, what camera angles they prefer and so on!
  6. New skills! Learning new things and listening to new voices, finding experts in the areas where I want to grow or change and seeking cousel. There are a lot of people willing to share how they got where they are. Sometimes for free and sometimes through a mentorship. There are so many resources, books, blogs, and YouTube channels offering advice on almost every topic from starting a million dollar business to creating a Tik Tok video! People are offering advice!
  7. New attitude! I’m learning a lot about mindfulness these days and how we think impacts every area of life including health and finance. How what we believe often informs what we do! What do you think about yourself? Your health, earning potential or ability to learn, grow and change? There are countless examples of people that achieved their dreams and goals by first believing they could!

    Connect with me! I’m always interested in getting to know people from all over the world, I believe we can learn something from everyone!