I am afraid to write this letter. I am sitting in public, and I am afraid I will cry.
I’m afraid I will cry the same way I do when pictures of places we walked along the canals pop up on my Instagram. When the wind hits me just right and my boots fly down concrete watching neon signs pass. When I think of the taste of prosecco and it’s a secret a winekeeper kept until just the right moment. When I think about how if I were not who I am, I would never have gotten back on that plane.
I am instantly plunged back into a whirlwind that can’t possibly have been real, and I burst into tears.
But it was. It was so goddamn real, I had to check, so I came back. I came back. And I was supposed to come back.
But 5000 miles is no small thing when you have small children and small businesses.
It feels trite to say, “We’ll always have Paris” because I will. But for you, it’s just home.
You cracked me open in a way I will never be able to repay you for. But I hope I can thank you, and it’s worth some small thing.
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Dusti Arab, Fractional CMO
And the founder of the reinvention co, a marketing consultancy specializing in working with personality-driven companies with small teams.
Intense, fun, and relentlessly practical, Dusti understands the lives of small business owners are deeply intertwined with their businesses, and if their marketing is going to be sustainable, it can't get in the way of why they do what they do. (And honestly? It should be fun so they actually want to do it.)
She is the host of Referral Worthy, a podcast for small business owners ready to go from "best kept secret" to the go-to name in their niche.