What I Know Now

A series about the things nobody told me — and what I had to live to learn.

I am not writing this from a place of having it all figured out.

I am writing this from the other side of a lot of decisions I should not have made, a lot of people I should not have let in, a lot of yeses I gave when everything in me was saying no. I am writing this because I am in my 50s now, and I finally know some things — and I wish to God I had known them at 25.

This is not a self-help series. I am not going to give you five steps to anything. I am not going to wrap hard truth in pretty language so it goes down easier. That is not what I needed when I was young, and I do not think it is what you need now.

“What I needed was one woman to sit down and tell me the truth about what she had been through — without cleaning it up first.”

So that is what this is.

What I Know Now is a paid article series. Each article goes deep on one thing — one lesson I had to live to learn. We are talking about identity. Relationships. Money. My body. God. The gifts I was too afraid to claim. The doors I walked through that I had no business opening — and the ones I let close because I did not believe I deserved what was on the other side.

I have lived every single one of these. Some of them still sting. I am writing them anyway.

The first article goes up soon. It starts in a healthcare facility, on an ordinary workday, with a phone call I should have let ring.

That article is free. Everything after it is paid — because this work took me decades to live, and it is worth something. I believe that. I also believe the right woman will know exactly what I mean by the time she finishes reading article one.

If you have ever known something and done the opposite anyway —

If you have ever confused being needed with being loved —

If you have ever looked back at your younger self and thought, baby, I wish I could’ve warned you —

You are exactly who I am writing this for.

Subscribe. The first one is on me.

— Rashida