04/13/2026
Erstwhile was never just a business.
It became what it is while my dad was dying.
My mom and I cared for him at home on hospice during the final month of his life. It was heavy in a way I don’t think you can fully explain unless you’ve lived it. The kind of grief that starts before someone is gone.
This is how I coped with that.
I poured everything I had into this space. It gave me somewhere to put the fear, the exhaustion, the heartbreak. It gave me something steady when nothing else felt that way.
In the beginning, it was small. Oracle readings. Reiki. Tea. Every dollar went right back into it. Eventually into more product, mostly crystals. For a while, that worked.
But this space was never really about what we sold.
It became a place where people could come and just be. A place for grief, healing, connection, and conversations that don’t have easy answers.
We opened our doors to charities, nonprofits, and community groups. We raised money. We held space.
Last year I added coffee. It brought new energy in, but it also changed what my time and capacity looked like.
At the same time, I’ve been navigating the aftermath of my car accident. When stress gets too high, my brain doesn’t always cooperate. There are moments where I lose my ability to speak.
Through all of it, this space has reflected exactly where I am.
I’m not polished. I’m not curated. I’m still figuring things out in real time.
And I think that’s the part I’ve been trying to separate for too long.
Erstwhile is not just a coffee shop.
It’s not just a crystal shop.
It’s a third space.
A place that holds people in the in-between. The messy, complicated, human parts of life.
And moving forward, I’m leaning into that more fully.
This page will shift. It will still have drinks and products, but it will also have more of me. More of what this space actually is underneath all of it.
Because Erstwhile has never been separate from me.
It is my grief.
My healing.
My growth.
My humanity.
And it’s time it exists that way, openly.
