Hello Darlings!
I think this post is more for me than it is for you.
You know when there’s like a 1 in 1000 chance that such-and-such symptom will happen to you if you take a certain medication? And everyone is like, ‘oh that will never happen to me’? Well, that’s my life. All of the time. Things that just don’t seem to happen to other people on a regular basis tend to happen to me everyday (both good and bad)…
I’m the 5’6″ girl (on a good day) who is a successful model, became an entrepreneur at 22, ventured to NYFW twice, fell in love with the most genuine and caring man you could ever hope to meet (in like 2 months) and I have the most amazing group of supporters on the planet (no, I’m not talking about followers on social media. I’m talking about people who constantly support the ambitious adventures I get myself into, are always ready help me every single step of the way, believe in me through my successes and stick with me in my failures). I am extremely fortunate because not a lot of people can say they have this many wonderful things in their lives, all of which I appreciate and value from the very bottom of my heart. But, I’ve also had a lot of really bad things happen throughout the years too – losing my dad to suicide, spending 6 days in the hospital from MRSA and almost having my right butt cheek cut off (sadly, I am not joking here), struggling with chronic headaches (which are under control thanks to hot yoga!), family drama through the roof and lots of other weird random issues to deal with regularly.
My life has a tremendous amount of ups and downs. I’m talking like extreme ends of the spectrum. Time and time again, I hear the people around me go, “Allyn, you need a reality TV show. They won’t even need to up the drama, that’s definitely taken care of enough in your life.” Let me clarify by saying that it’s not me causing or being involved in drama (it’s not high school), just everything that happens around me. I know everyone goes through things in life, but I really think my life takes that to a whole new level. So, I’d like to start sharing my amazing, crazy, stressful life with all of you. We’ll see how it goes and how you guys like it =).
Let’s start by reviewing the first few months of this year. January started and on top of all of the responsibilities of co-owning a business, I was charging full speed ahead on planning La Nuit Noire, a ball benefitting suicide awareness and prevention. I was also wrapping up a not-so-good relationship and the house we lived in together was just too much space for one person. Plus, I really really wanted my own parking spot. Parking on the street, and especially parallel parking, just were not my thing. I told my landlord I’d be moving out somewhere over March/April which seemed like more than a reasonable amount of time to find a place, pack and move all my stuff in right? Wrong.
In the meantime, I had asked this super talented (and fantastic looking) musician, Shaun Novak, to perform at La Nuit Noire, who I may or may not have been stalking since I saw him at a fashion show I was a part of in like July. Once I asked him to be a part of my event, we started chatting and I began to realize not only was he extremely talented, but he also had the biggest heart for his little brothers, cared so much about everyone around him, and was still dead set on pursuing his music dream as a career even though he’d been knocked down time and time again (which I truly admire and appreciate anyone who has the determination to do that). After attempting to hang out with him and being rejected numerous times, I FINALLY got him to take me to dinner, which just so happened to be like 3 days before the ball. So, not only did I do something unheard of for someone involved in event production by making time for a personal date during event week, I ended up sitting and talking to him for 4 hours until Olive Garden closed for the evening. I checked my phone a maximum of 2 times and even had someone ask me if I died since I hadn’t been active on social media for such a long timeframe. I am now head-over-heels in love with this man in a way that I never thought was possible (and I promise you, I never thought I would be THAT girl).
But, back to the housing situation. I started looking for places to live which was much harder than I thought and a process I grew to hate very early on (and by looking for places, I mean spending 10 minutes now and then on google searching for apartments and then getting distracted and wanting to do better things with my time). April started quickly approaching and I was pulling my hair out from having nowhere to live. After the situation with my ex, naturally I was firmly set on not living with another guy for like the next 15 years of my life at least, but let me tell you after going from a house with all women (my mom and two sisters), to living in college dorms, to two years in a sorority house, and then living with a boy, being in a house by myself for 2 months was completely awful. I was lonely and it was so quiet all the time. While having a casual conversation on Facebook one night about moving to the beach and hating Pittsburgh weather, Shaun threw me a curve ball and said he would feel comfortable living with me. I didn’t take it too seriously until it came up in person a few days later. So, after talking it through, we decided to go for it. Meanwhile, I was just thinking that now I can pawn the house hunting process on someone else (muwhhhahaha – evil laugh)… If you are reading this babe, just kidding! =P
Days and weeks went by of driving in circles looking for housing options and countless google searches lead us to turn to Craigslist (which I am not a fan of… Come on we’ve all heard of the Craigslist killer). We searched, we viewed, we applied, but apparently, it’s not so easy to get approved for a lease. I don’t have credit cards, I bought my car (who knew that would bite me so hard in the butt later), and my previous house lease was through a family friend. No credit history means no house. That on top of being a business owner and not being on any sort of payroll, really just dug the knife in deeper to the already painful process of moving. Completely fed up and out of options, I posted a Facebook status about needing someone to help me find a place. By this time, it was like two weeks into April and my landlord already had new tenants coming in May 1st. A good friend of mine ended up commenting with the name of a phenomenal realtor, Dave Monaco, and if it wasn’t for him, I would be living in a cardboard box right now (we live in a lovely house with plenty of parking!) So, if you are looking to move in the Pittsburgh area, you need to contact him.
Moving on – on top of that, my Woman of the Year Campaign for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society spanned from March 13th and runs until May 16th. One would think that it would be easy to get lots of people on board for such an amazing cause, but I quickly realized that is not the case. I had such big ideas for this campaign, some of them happened and some of them didn’t, but at the end of the day, I am just so honored to be fundraising in anyway that I can for LLS and I want to do anything I can to contribute long after the campaign is over. This experience has been phenomenal and the passion in every member of LLS has blown me away. I have met and heard stories from so many people that have inspired me day in and day out. My favorite was connecting with Lauren Blanchard of gotCUREage (read my interview with her here) on social media. I swear to you that not even within 10 minutes of finding out about my Red Shoe Gala, she decided to schedule a weekend trip to Pittsburgh and bought tickets. Her story is beyond inspirational and she has made a life long impact on me.
Here’s a funny side note – the Sunday after the Red Shoe Gala, I fell down my steps, woke up on the kitchen floor 10-15 minutes later and eventually figured out I had a concussion. I spent the next few days laying in bed, completely loopy. I vaguely remember proposing to Shaun and also being really upset that Giant Eagle wouldn’t deliver ice cream to my house. This was all right before I moved and I also had to pack on top of all this. So there was that. Plus, we literally looked at the house on April 29th, packed on the 30th and moved in on May 1st.
Back to LLS… With everything else in my life going on, I feel like the worst campaign candidate ever. I have raised no where near my ambitious $250,000 fundraising goals and I’ll be the first to admit my Red Shoe Gala flopped, I didn’t have enough time, resources, or even mental capacity to promote it the way I needed to. I even had a breakdown in the hallway at the event, something I have never ever done before. I found that it’s even harder to get people to buy tickets and come out to an event that 100% benefits a charity than it is to get people to come to something like a magazine launch party, which breaks my heart. It’s also a hard moment to realize that so many people don’t follow through on promises they make. I came out of that night with a changed perspective on my life. I was surrounded by the friends and colleagues that truly matter and also by such strong cancer fighters and survivors. I cannot thank those people enough for being there. It helped me figure out who is genuinely there for me and who isn’t. I love helping people, almost to a point where it becomes a problem sometimes and negatively affects me. In the future, I’ll be narrowing my efforts to help those who support me and the people I care about around me. I’m learning that I can’t help everyone, and I especially can’t help the people who don’t appreciate or return support that is given to them.
This leads me into my next life topic – starting a new business on my own. Co-owning a PR firm this past year and a half has been a wonderful experience and I have learned more than I could have ever imagined. I love fashion, beauty and lifestyle, and working in those industries is something I will always do because they are a part of the person I am. However, through all of the stress and situations I have been through lately, I also have realized my love for non-profits, my renewed interest in music (which has always been a part of my life since I was little), and my desire to work more closely with health/wellness companies (since I have had about no time to work out or take care of myself properly in the past few months, and I am noticing the huge tole it’s taken on my productivity, mood and energy levels).
So why am I telling you all of this? Somewhere along the line of my life (way before this year), I have found a method to get strategically through anything. Every situation, no matter how bad it is, my mind automatically jumps to thinking about why it didn’t work? What did I learn? How can I improve similar situations in the future? What are my options? What are the benefits and disadvantages of each possible solution? The bottom line is, no matter what you are going through everyone has the power to use their struggle and develop it into strength. It’s important to learn that the skills you develop from going through one hard experience can be applied to others that arise, something I think a lot of people don’t realize. I also cannot emphasize enough how important it is to take time for yourself, who you love, and what you enjoy outside of your career (even if you love what you do like I do) in order to be successful in any and all areas of life. I have gotten put down a lot in the past for taking time for myself and my life outside of my career, but I assure you, when I neglect the other aspects of my life, my productively and work suffers as a result. To stay driven, focused, and passionate, you have to find the right balance in your life as a whole.
Where is my future headed? I want to use my weird, logically-creative mind to make a difference in the world. I want to use the skills I have developed from all the crap I have been through to change people’s lives in business and beyond, and I want to strategically make dreams come true.
I also want to share with you how I’ve learned to manage my time and life to remain a successful business woman and model throughout all of the chaos, because I promise, you can do it too! I have done a really great job at separating my career, image, and personal life, and I will never be one to make my entire life public, but I want to try sharing a little bit more of who I am and what my life is like. I want to inspire you and help you learn and grow because it’s the support from all of you that helps me progress and develop into a better person too!
This post has been all over the place and we all know I can ramble on forever, so I’ll end it here. But I promise I will keep you updated on my life and my adventures! Don’t worry, this isn’t all of my life excitement. I also have a teenage sister who is obsessed with boys, a mom who just finished med school (often resulting in the need for me to step in as mom), a raging love for hockey, tales of what it’s like to start your own business from scratch, being a PR girl, and tons of other topics to cover. I will be focusing more on career related topics in the next post! For day to day amusement and life happenings, follow me on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook =).
PS – I strongly believe that the key to change is sharing stories, so feel free to share yours below! I want to know about your lives, adventures, and what you all are going through too! <3
xoxo,
Allyn
*Featured image credits (left to right), PhotosOnCall, Hilary Bishop Photography, Angie Candell Photography and Willyum Photography