Building a New Chapter: Opening the New Minnetonka Permanent Jewelry Studio

There is a specific kind of exhaustion that does not come from working too hard.

It comes from holding too many versions of yourself at once.

I just got back from PJX. It is one of the largest permanent jewelry conferences in the country, and I will be honest with you: I did not fully know what I was walking into.

What I found was a room full of people (mostly women, but some men, too) who have been doing this work longer than I have. People who have built teams and storefronts and wholesale lines and things I am still only sketching out on paper. There were moments where I felt the gap between where they are and where I am, and initially it was uncomfortable.

But then something shifted.

Lessons From PJX

One morning I sat down at the pool with no agenda, no pitch, no plan. I ended up in conversations with women I had never met before. We talked about business and burnout and what we are actually building and why. And somewhere in the middle of those conversations I remembered something I keep forgetting when I am heads-down in logistics: I am not behind. But I might be early.

I also had to sit with the fact that my background makes me genuinely different in this space. I spent years in education. I have a doctorate. I have built systems and managed people and navigated institutional complexity in ways that most people in this industry have not had to. That is not a flex. It is just a fact that took me a while to stop apologizing for.

My path into permanent jewelry does not look like anyone else's path into permanent jewelry. And I am starting to think that is the whole point.

The Reality of Opening a New Studio While Working Full Time

While I was away, construction officially started on the Haven space.

It still does not feel fully real. This new studio has been in progress for longer than I want to admit. There have been delays and timeline shifts and moments where I genuinely wondered if it was going to come together. And now it is actually happening. The space is becoming something.

And somehow, instead of feeling pure relief, I feel something more complicated than that.

Because here is the thing about building a new chapter: you do not get to pause the old one while you do it.

I am still working my full-time job. I am still showing up for every obligation I had before this became real. I am still the person who organizes everyone else's schedules and manages the logistics and makes sure the details do not fall through the cracks. And now I am also opening a new studio location, processing everything I learned at a national conference, and being approached with opportunities I did not fully anticipate when I started this year.

Transition seasons are not clean. They do not arrive with a clear start and end date. They just sort of accumulate until one morning you wake up and realize you are actively living in the middle of one.

Why the Haven Beauty Collective Space Matters

I think a lot of women are in some version of this right now.

Not necessarily opening studios or attending conferences. But holding multiple versions of themselves simultaneously. The version that shows up reliably for everyone else. The version that is quietly building something on the side. The version that is exhausted. The version that is more energized than she has been in years.

We are not taught how to be in transition gracefully. We are taught to push through, stay organized, keep performing, and announce the results when everything is polished and finished. The messy middle is not supposed to be visible.

But I think the messy middle is actually where the most important things happen.

At some point, adulthood became mostly logistics. Schedules and errands and obligations and surviving the week. Joy kept getting pushed to someday. Connection kept getting rescheduled. "We should totally do something" became the thing we said instead of actually doing something.

I do not think that is what any of us signed up for.

And I do not think most women are craving more things. I think they are craving more moments. More presence. More reasons to actually show up somewhere and feel fully present.

That is what I keep coming back to when I think about why I am building this.

Not just jewelry. Not just a studio. A place where women can walk in and exhale. Where the experience of being there is the whole point. Where connection is not incidental, it is intentional.

The Messy Middle Is Beautiful Too

Here is what I know about this season, even on the days it feels like too much:

Meaningful things rarely look polished while they are being built.

The Haven space does not look like much right now. It is construction. It is potential with drywall. And that is exactly how most worthwhile things start.

I could be further along. I could have launched faster, scaled sooner, done more. But I also could have built something that looked impressive from the outside and felt hollow from the inside. That does not interest me.

What I am interested in is building something that feels alive.

Something that fits the life I am actually trying to create, not the life that looks the most logical from the outside.

I spent a lot of years being impressive. I am realizing I being happy is what is most important.

Minnetonka Permanent Jewelry... And More

If you are in your own version of a transition season right now, I want you to know something:

You are allowed to want more alignment than you currently have.

You are allowed to feel excited and overwhelmed at the same time.

You are allowed to build something gradually, imperfectly, without having all the answers first.

And you are allowed to decide that joy is not something you earn after everything else is handled. It is something you choose right now, in the middle of the mess, while the walls are still going up and the plans are still shifting and the next chapter is still becoming itself.

That is what this summer is about for me.

I will keep sharing it as it unfolds.

If you want to follow along as the Haven studio comes together, I would love to have you there. The waitlist is open, and early access is available before we officially open the doors. I'm so excited to create a space for Minnetonka permanent jewelry and more!

The best things usually take a little longer than you planned. But they also tend to be worth it.