What A Ko-Winky-Dink

Well, hello.

So apparently some of you are new here. Welcome.

If you just found this place and you’re trying to figure out what this is, the short version is that I’m Sarah Steed, in my mid-forties and I write about the patterns that society has decided not to notice, and then I drag them into plain view until people either look at them or get annoyed with me for pointing. And frankly, both responses are data, and I love them.

What I’m interested in, and what I can’t seem to stop being interested in, is power, perception, and the cost of certain systems that protect themselves by sounding moral. Mostly religion, fitness culture, marriage….the usual suspects. I’ve been inside the things I write about, played by the rules, paid for it, and then got very, very interested in how it all worked. So the tone here isn’t detached critique from a safe distance. I’m an informed disruptor.

I notice things I shouldn’t. This has always been a burden of mine. Followed me around like a disease most of my life and have caused some relationships to be difficult. I have been known to wander, but it’s usually on purpose, and I’ll go wherever it’s telling the truth. I’ve lived some things which will show up when they matter in my writing.

For those of you who’ve been here a while, hi. I still like you best. Don’t tell the new people. (They don’t have our history yet so we’re fine.) For the new ones, thank you. I’m genuinely glad you’re here. Poke around. The first post is a good place to start if you want to understand what we’re doing.

And if you have questions, thoughts, or a story that sounds uncomfortably similar to something I wrote, my inbox is open. That’s not a polite thing I’m saying. I mean it.

Since it’s been a year on Substack, some posts will be free, because information that helps people should not require a subscription. Paid subscribers get my strategies. They receive little excerpts from a memoir I’m working on. But also, they’ll receive worksheets and practical tools for life and body transformation that I usually save for paid clients.

And yes, there will occasionally be stories that make you raise an eyebrow. Given the life I’ve lived, that’s unavoidable. But I want to say that I’m not here to perform my damage. I’m not interested in trauma as content. What I am interested in is what comes after the raised eyebrow, like the “what do you actually do with this,” because that’s what matters.

So, welcome. I’m glad you’re here. And I want you to know, before we go any further, that I love you. That you are not your divorce, your religion, your before photo, your worst decision, your most impressive credential, your follower count, your credit score, or whatever story the loudest person in your life has been telling about you.

It’s not a ko-winky-dink that you’re here. I mean, you could have wandered off by now. Some people don’t stay for this part. They like the version that wraps itself up, smiles, and lets them get on with their day feeling unchanged and vaguely virtuous. No shade. It’s efficient. But you’re here, which tells me you’re the kind of person who suspects there’s more going on, and is willing to hang around long enough to find it. Even when it asks you to loosen your grip on what you’ve been certain about. That’s who I’m writing for.

Okay. That’s it.

Just wanted to say hi.

Hi.

— Sarah xx