God Forbid a Girl Wants a Quiet Life and a Full-Fat Latte.

Camille Stockwell

10 hours ago

4 min read

I was about twenty minutes into The Skinny Confidential podcast episode with Paige Lorenze when it hit me: she is hurt, and she is amazing, in so many ways. But the biggest thing that stood out to me was her honesty about coming back to herself, and how that’s what allowed her to build a community that actually feels authentic.

Paige lived in New York for a while. She was a normal girl who became successful, but somewhere along the way, doing “the most” with the supplements, the overtraining, cutting gluten and dairy because apparently that’s what you’re supposed to do, she started to feel worse. Mentally, physically, spiritually.

Then, one day, she ordered a latte with whole milk, and people turned and stared. Who orders whole milk in a New York coffee shop in 2020? But that was the moment something clicked for her. She was in a city where everyone was trying so hard to be different that it had become its own kind of conformity: stand out, but not too much. And she just thought, fuck it, I want dairy. Even though everyone around her gave her the weirdest look.

That was the first time she came back to herself.

Eventually, she left the city entirely and went back to Connecticut, somewhere slower, somewhere she could still thrive and have that girl-boss energy, but also come home and feel soft. Cook. Watch a movie. Play a board game. The stuff she grew up doing as a kid.

I relate to this more than I expected to. I grew up in Boston, a small city, but still a city, and even so, I always felt this urge to get out every weekend. I was raised pretty traditionally, and on top of that, I have this ADHD mindset that pulls me towards so many things at once. I’m always chasing hopes, dreams, goals, the “perfect” job, the normal job, the nutritional job, the right job, and I’ve spent a lifetime going back and forth between what feels right to me and what everyone else seems to want for me.

I love the quiet stuff, sitting in my car, my little routines, but I also want that sweet, overwhelming, aura-filled opportunity I’ve always dreamed of experiencing.

Listening to Paige, it struck me: you think you’re alone in this. You think certain things aren’t achievable. And then you hear someone else’s story and realise it’s the same thread, just a different life.

Coming back to yourself, regardless of what society or social media tells you to think, do or follow, is the real path to success. That’s the whole point. Not the money, not what it looks like on paper. It’s about stopping the chase for other people’s ideals, other people’s versions of who you should be, and instead getting quiet enough to hear what you actually want.

Because the more we listen to ourselves, and become intentional about how we show up and present ourselves to the world, the more we create an undeniable magnetism. That magnetism is what draws in the right people. Not everyone. The right ones.

That’s the other piece of it: quality over quantity. Paige’s brand, and honestly, her whole life, reflects that. There’s no point in trying to please everyone. You end up thinning yourself out, losing your intentionality and blurring into whatever you think will be palatable.

The move instead is to focus on the relationships and things that actually mean the most to you. When you do that, things start to fall into place on their own.

One thing that might seem small, maybe even to Paige herself, is that she knew, without question, that she wanted her roots in Connecticut. Away from the crowd, away from everyone else’s noise. A place to slow down and come back to herself. An environment that actually reflects who she is on the inside.

I struggle with this too, if I’m being honest. The idea of living somewhere because you think you should, or avoiding somewhere because of how it might look to other people. For a long time, I pushed away the idea of eventually settling down in Maine because it isn’t exactly “mainstream”, and it’s far from where my friends are planting their roots.

But deep down, I know that’s where I want to be. And I’m finally letting myself embrace that.

There are so many parallels between Paige and me, not just in how we grew up, but in the way we think, the entrepreneurial instinct and the relationships we both have with ourselves. Coming back to that relationship, again and again, might be the most important work either of us ever does.

Because when you’re honest with yourself, when you actually feel the feelings, understand what you want deep down and listen to and act on that inner voice, that’s when you become your most successful.

Not because you’re one of a kind. You don’t have to be.

You’re already unique enough to build something and create a community that will back you and, beautifully, begin to feed into itself.