I have been sitting with a question for the past week that I thought I had already answered a long time ago. My why. Why I am building KAEIU. Why I keep going. Why, after five years, I haven't walked away.
When I started this brand, my why was clear. I was in a dark place personally, battling infertility and feeling creatively starved professionally. I needed a spark. Something that brought me joy. Something that challenged me. Something that reminded me I was capable of more than what I was being offered. KAEIU gave me that. It pulled me out of a black hole I didn't want to stay in, and I will always be grateful for what it did for me in those early years.
But five years have passed and I have two sons now. My life looks completely different. Recently, when I tried to return to that original why as a grounding point, I realized it no longer fit. I had outgrown it. Which sounds like a good thing, and it is, but it also left me feeling unmoored in a way I wasn't expecting.
So I started asking myself some hard questions. On the days when this is difficult, what am I actually protecting? What would I lose if I stopped? And the answer that kept coming back was this: I haven't seen what KAEIU can fully become yet. I have been building this brand with one hand while raising two very young children with the other. And I would not have it any other way. I want equal parts family and business. But that means that I have never been able to give it everything. And I’m not ready to walk away without seeing what it can become.
My why now feels less like a need to prove myself and it runs deeper. I am building for financial freedom that doesn't need to announce itself. I am building to show my sons what it looks like when someone answers her own call, plays by her own rules, and wins on her own terms. I am building because I started something out of nothing, and I want to see an ember turn into a fire.
I'll be honest, I felt a flicker of guilt when I wrote that out. Somewhere along the way I had absorbed the idea that a founder's why should always be about serving others first. And while I do care deeply about the women who carry these bags and the community we are slowly building together, I think there is something important in admitting that the most sustainable businesses are built by people who also need them to succeed. For themselves. For their families. For the life they are trying to create.
It took an incident with back pain to start digging into the complex feelings inside me that felt out of balance. When I figured out my today's why, it resonated so deeply it left me in tears. If you are in a season of your own where your original reason for doing something no longer fits, I hope this finds you at the right moment. I hope you figure out what most deeply resonates with you.
With love,
Maria
Founder of KAEIU
My why: answering my own call, playing by my own rules, and winning on my own terms.