This week, I found an old photo of myself from the early days of French Kiss Life – my previous business.
And as I sat there looking at her (me), I noticed she was a little more unsure and had no idea what was coming.
But she was lit up – drunk on Paris and possibility and the thrill of having found the thing she was meant to say.
I looked at her and felt that ache. You know the one… I want to go back.
Here’s what we get wrong about nostalgia. We treat it as a sad indulgence – a feeling to sigh through, shake off, and file under getting sentimental in my older years.
But I don’t think the ache is weakness. I think it’s information.
Nostalgia isn’t pointing backward at a time. It’s pointing at something true you walked away from. A version of you that knew something you’ve since let get complicated.
The pull to go back isn’t asking you to relive it. It’s asking you to reclaim it. In a new way, with way more wisdom and experience.
So I listened to what the nostalgia was really saying. And all I could see was that lit-up woman, drunk on la vie, before the strategy and the scaling and the seriousness crept in. The joie de vivre that was the whole point before it became a business.
And here’s the thing… I’m not just missing her. I’m bringing her back.
That’s what’s quietly taking shape over here. Not a step backward – a homecoming. A return to the truest thing, which, it turns out, was waiting at the beginning the whole time.
I can’t help but wonder: what does your nostalgia keep pointing at?
And what would it take to go get it – instead of just missing it?
With nostalgia,
P.S. I’m keeping that photo where I can see it. She had something figured out that I’m about to reclaim. More soon.
My nostalgia is not sentimentality. It’s a compass.
When something from my past keeps calling me back, it’s worth asking what it’s actually pointing at. Not a time. A truth.
Nuxe Prodigieuse Forever Set
Every trip to Paris, I had a ritual. Before museums, before dinner reservations, I went to the French pharmacy.
That’s where I discovered Nuxe Huile Prodigieuse, the shimmering gold body oil that makes your skin look like you’ve just returned from the Riviera. Stocking up became my annual tradition. I’d tuck bottles into my suitcase like contraband.
This set has all three versions: the classic, the shimmer, and the florale, plus a little pouch to keep them in. No passport required.
You no longer need a plane ticket to get it. However, I’d never talk you out of one.
How I Put the Joie Back Into My Vivre (after struggling for way too long) [From the Archives]
Joie de vivre isn’t something you’re born with and either keep or lose. I spent decades without it – and found my way back through one specific practice that sounds almost too simple to work.
Pulling this one from the vault this week because it’s exactly the kind of thing worth revisiting when life starts feeling heavier than it should.
// TheEDIT
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