My old landlord's one comment killed my imposter syndrome

I was cleaning out my storage unit in Baltimore last week, moving boxes from when I first started freelancing. My old landlord from that crappy walk-up saw me struggling with a lamp and just said "you actually figured out how to make this work, didn't you?" We talked for maybe 10 minutes. She remembered me paying rent late twice, crying on the stairs over a rejected pitch. It hit me different because she wasn't praising my work, she was pointing out that I stayed. I spent 4 years thinking I was barely holding on, but I never quit. That night I added up my invoices from that first year, $14,300 total. Now I do that in a slow month. Has anyone else had a random person from your past say something that re-framed your whole grind?

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1 Comment

iris9274d ago

Stopped me cold when I read that she remembered you crying on the stairs. That's the kind of detail people usually forget, but she carried it around all that time. Wild how someone just seeing you stick it out can hit harder than any praise.