Why I Made The Work Between
The Work Between isn’t my first website. And it definitely isn’t the first time I’ve written for an audience.
Way back in 2012, while studying Mass Communication at Sam Houston State University, one of my classes required us to create a website and start publishing our own content.
Somewhere on the internet, there may still be a 20-something-year-old version of Amber sharing her thoughts with the world.
Which is both nostalgic and absolutely terrifying.
Writing wasn’t new to me then, and it definitely wouldn’t be after.
I went on to start my career as a multimedia journalist, which is a whole other story involving a camera, a microphone, local news and a first-year salary of $18,000.
Yes.
Eighteen. Thousand. Dollars.
We will absolutely come back to that one another day.
But somewhere between 2012 and now, something happened.
I kept writing.
News stories. Marketing copy. Campaigns. Websites. Emails. Speeches. Social posts. Talking points. Strategies. And more PowerPoints than any human should reasonably create in one lifetime.
I just stopped writing for me.
And every once in a while, I would think:
I should start writing again.
Not because something was due.
Not because an organization needed something.
Not because it was part of my job.
Just because I had something to say.
And that is really where The Work Between started.
“So, why The Work Between?”
I love marketing.
Like, genuinely love it.
I love the strategy. The psychology. The storytelling. The creativity. The data. The tiny details most people will never notice.
I love taking an idea that exists in someone’s head and turning it into something that makes another person stop, feel, care or take action.
I’ve built my career doing this, and the longer I work in marketing, the more opinions I seem to develop about it.
And yes, some of those opinions are about why marketing is more than making a flyer.
Or a PowerPoint.
Although, for the record, I make a mean PowerPoint.
But somewhere along the way, my career stopped being the only thing I wanted to talk about.
I became a wife.
I became a leader.
I became a mom.
I plan to go back to school for my master’s.
I found my way into nonprofit marketing and started working with stories that completely changed the way I thought about what marketing can actually mean.
And somewhere in all of that, I realized something:
“There is so much life happening between the things we put on LinkedIn.”
Between the promotion and the next goal.
Between the meeting and daycare pickup.
Between the campaign launch and the idea you randomly type into your Notes app at 11:47 p.m.
Between being really proud of how far you’ve come and wondering if you should be doing more.
Between walking into a room feeling like you absolutely know what you’re doing and Googling something five minutes later.
Between building a career you love and wanting to be completely present at home.
Between who you were at 22 and whoever the hell you’re becoming now.
That’s the work between.
And that’s what I want to write about.
“Because apparently, we’re the adults now.”
I’m a millennial.
Which means I grew up believing adulthood would eventually arrive with some sort of instruction manual.
Still waiting on that.
Instead, we somehow became the people leading meetings.
Managing teams.
Raising children.
Buying houses.
Making decisions.
Taking care of other people.
Sitting in rooms we once hoped we’d be invited into.
And every once in a while, I look around and think…
Wait. We’re in charge now?
Because I still vividly remember burning CDs and changing my AIM away message to something just cryptic enough for one specific person to know it was about them.
And now I have a child and a career and discuss retirement accounts.
How did we get here?
The older I get, the more I realize the adults I thought had everything figured out when I was younger were probably doing exactly what we’re doing now.
Figuring it out as they went.
There’s something oddly comforting about that.
“And then there’s motherhood.”
Becoming a mom changed me in ways I expected.
And in a lot of ways I didn’t.
I’m ambitious.
I love my career.
I have big goals for myself.
And I also love being a mom more than I could have ever understood before becoming one.
For a while, I think I subconsciously believed those parts of me were supposed to compete.
That being ambitious somehow meant sacrificing something at home.
Or that becoming a mom meant I should suddenly care less about my career.
I don’t.
If anything, becoming a mom has made me think more about the kind of woman I want to be.
Because now there’s a little girl watching.
I want her to see a mom who loves her beyond words.
But I also want her to see a woman who has ideas.
Who takes chances.
Who works hard.
Who creates things.
Who wants more for herself and doesn’t feel guilty about saying it.
I’m still figuring out what that looks like.
Which, again, is kind of the whole point of this place.
“So, what will you find here?”
Marketing, obviously.
The strategy nobody sees. The campaigns I love. The things that drive marketers absolutely insane. The weird assumption that everyone with access to Canva suddenly has a marketing degree.
Leadership and the lessons I’m learning while actually doing it.
Nonprofit work and what it has taught me about storytelling, empathy, purpose and the responsibility that comes with telling someone else’s story.
Career growth.
Ambition.
Creativity.
Motherhood.
Millennial life.
Corporate nonsense.
Things I’m proud of.
Things I wish someone had told me sooner.
Things I’m still trying to figure out.
And probably some completely random thoughts that make sense in my head and somehow turn into 1,500 words.
Some posts might teach you something.
Some might make you think.
Some might make another marketer say, “THANK YOU. I thought it was just me.”
Some might make you laugh.
And some might simply be me working through an idea in real time.
That’s kind of the point.
“A look through Amber-colored glasses.”
Yes, I went there.
How could I not?
But the phrase actually describes exactly what I want this place to be.
Everything here is simply life as I see it.
Not the definitive answer.
Not a textbook.
And definitely not another person on the internet pretending she discovered the secret to building a career, raising a family, maintaining a marriage, drinking enough water, exercising, answering every email, having a skincare routine and achieving perfect work-life balance before 7 a.m.
Because if she exists, I would actually like her to start a website so I can read it.
This is just my perspective.
My experiences.
My mistakes.
My wins.
My career.
My motherhood.
The things I believe.
The things I’m questioning.
And everything I’m still learning.
A look through Amber-colored glasses.
Maybe you’ll agree with me.
Maybe you won’t.
Maybe you’ll read something and realize you’ve been thinking the exact same thing.
Maybe you’ll just be entertained.
I’m good with all of the above.
“So, here we are.”
Fourteen years after creating that first website for a college class, I’m creating another space to write.
A lot has happened between those two websites.
I graduated.
I became a reporter.
I left journalism.
I found marketing.
I built a career.
I became a wife.
I became a leader.
I became a mom.
And somewhere in there, I became a very different version of the girl who created that first website in 2012.
This time, there’s no professor grading it.
No news director waiting on my script.
No campaign deadline attached to it.
No brand voice I need to follow.
Just mine.
And honestly, I think that’s what I’ve been missing.
I don’t have all the answers.
I just have a lot of thoughts.
I didn’t create The Work Between because I suddenly found more time.
I definitely didn’t create it because I finally have life figured out.
And I didn’t create it because I stopped wondering what people might think.
I just decided I had something to say anyway.
So, welcome to The Work Between.
The career matters.
The family matters.
The big moments matter.
But so do all the little moments, questions, mistakes, ideas, lessons and versions of ourselves that happen along the way.
