Every so often, someone tells me they’ve known my name for years. Sometimes they’ve been reading my blog. Sometimes they’ve followed my website. Sometimes they’ve simply known who I was long before we ever met.
Every time it happens, I’m caught a little off guard. I usually laugh and joke that it makes me feel a little famous. Or maybe infamous. In my line of work, the distinction gets a little blurry. But after hearing it again recently, I found myself thinking about it more than I expected.
I think it’s because, from my perspective, I’m just living my life. I’m writing blog posts from my kitchen table, answering emails, working on my website, trying to figure out why my pool chemistry isn’t cooperating, chasing cats through the house, and looking for my reading glasses for the third time that day. Most days feel remarkably ordinary.
It never really occurs to me that while I’m going about my day, someone else might be quietly getting to know me.
For me, every new client starts as a stranger. For some of them, though, I don’t. They already know my sense of humor. They’ve read my thoughts about motherhood, business, and relationships. They’ve watched my website evolve. They’ve seen me celebrate wins, work through challenges, and occasionally disappear down a rabbit hole trying to solve some completely random problem. In a way, we’ve already been introduced.
I suppose that’s one of the unexpected realities of being online. People slowly get to understand who you really are. Every blog post, every picture, and every story becomes another conversation, even if we’ve never actually spoken.
The funny part is that I don’t think of myself as someone with a following. In my mind, those people are way cooler than I am. I still think of myself as an accountant who somehow ended up running a business that I genuinely love. My days are filled with marketing, spreadsheets, swimming pools, overhead, and the unexpected bonus of writing this blog. That last part still blows my mind because I absolutely hated anything remotely related to language arts in school. My life doesn’t feel glamorous. Most days, it just feels wonderfully mundane.
Yet every now and then, someone reminds me that the things I put out into the world have quietly reached people for years. I don’t think that’s fame. I think it’s something much more meaningful. It’s reputation. It’s trust. It’s discovering that all those hours spent writing, thinking, photographing, answering emails, and trying to build something genuine weren’t disappearing into the void after all.
I can’t think of a much better compliment than someone saying, “I’ve known your name for a long time.” Not because it makes me feel important, but because all of the effort I’ve poured into my business is being seen. Quietly, in the background, people are paying attention. Someone reads a blog post, then another a few months later. They visit my website from time to time. Life gets busy, years pass, and then one day they decide to say hello. By then, it isn’t really an introduction. It’s simply the first conversation.
So no, I don’t think I’m famous.
Infamous?
Maybe just enough to keep life interesting.
🌟Charlotte