On Building What Holds
Today is my birthday.
The ground is iced over. Snow clings to the edges of things. The cold has settled in and isn’t in a hurry to leave. That isn’t unusual for this time of year, even here in Texas.
What feels different is the clarity.
2026 is the Fire Horse Year—movement, conviction, and momentum without apology. Born an Aquarius in 1983, I’ve always had a tendency to look sideways at the world—questioning systems, noticing cracks, imagining alternatives without always knowing where they’d lead. This feels like the year those instincts stop circling and start carrying weight.
I call this Chapter 43 because it’s the first time my age feels less like a number and more like a narrative turn.
I’m forty-three today. And there’s something I want to share. I’ve been writing my way toward it for a while now, letting it arrive in its own time. This feels like the right moment to set it down, and I’m glad you’re here.
Chapter 43
I’m not afraid anymore.
Not because the world feels steady. It doesn’t.
Not because I’ve stopped paying attention. I haven’t.
I realized fear was no longer coming from what might happen, but from what would happen if I stayed where I was. I reached a point where I no longer cared to spend my life explaining myself to structures that profit from misunderstanding me, marginalizing me, and mining whatever clarity I could offer without honoring it. I stopped trying to persuade systems, institutions, or crowds of my humanity. That work is endless. It demands everything and rarely returns care in kind.
So I chose something else.
I chose to build.
Simply Edyn & Co. began as a practical response to moments and events leading up to the times we’re living in. A moment marked by shifts that can’t be softened by optimism or explained away with reassurances. The ground has moved. Pretending otherwise doesn’t protect anyone. It only delays the reckoning we feel in our bodies long before we name it.
What we’re witnessing now isn’t hysteria. It’s awareness arriving late to reality. Trust feels thin. Institutions are broken. Hope feels brittle. People sense it in their nervous systems before language catches up.
We’re told to stay calm while the familiar rearranges itself.
Calm isn’t the goal.
Connection is.
This work exists because I wanted a way to move through the world with more care and awareness. A place to buy, make, and choose differently. A recognition that money is never neutral. It always goes somewhere. It always feeds something. The question is whether we’re conscious of where it lands.
Simply Edyn & Co. is a retail home built with open eyes.
Apparel, books, and everyday goods meant to be used, returned to, and lived with. Objects chosen for durability, usefulness, and the quiet dignity of being enough. Made to sit comfortably inside a life, not compete with it. Everything meant to support it.
I’m not reinventing the wheel—just choosing to slow it down, look at where it’s been rolling, and decide more carefully where it goes next. Retail doesn’t have to mean extraction, urgency, or performance. It can be relational. It can be thoughtful. It can remember that people are not data points or conversions.
This is why I’m introducing The Market. It’s a young idea I’m testing in public, with the hope of growing it into other areas that matter. Not as a claim of doing things “better,” but as a commitment to paying attention—and letting actions, over time, speak for themselves.
Fifteen percent of profits from every purchase supports food security, education, and women-centered medical research. Not as an afterthought. As part of the structure itself. Care doesn’t come after success. It has to be present from the beginning.
Alongside the shop is Edyn House Press. It’s where my books live. Physical books. Made to be held, written in, and revisited. Work that slows the reader down, sharpens attention, and offers steadiness when the world feels loud or hollow.
This year also includes the release of The Clarity Almanac 2026—a book designed to help people mark time, notice patterns, and return to themselves with more intention.
Together, these pieces form something simple and intentional. Not a solution. Not a gesture. Just a small alternative to extractive systems that take endlessly and give nothing back. Not perfect. Not pure. Just more honest about cost and more careful with consequence.
This isn’t about selling hope. It’s about refusing performative goodness that disappears under pressure.
It’s about alignment. Choosing consistency over spectacle. Building something that can hold weight without requiring anyone to disappear to make it work.
Beginning today, and through the end of February, 25% of all profits will be directed toward community-based food security and medical access initiatives led by Black and Asian American organizations.
February holds both Black History Month and Lunar New Year. Not as symbols, but as reminders of how much care, labor, and survival have shaped this country without being equally protected by it. This is a small, concrete way to return resources to the communities that have always given more than they were afforded.
I’m not interested in building an empire. I’m interested in building something sustainable. Something that can grow without hollowing people out. Something that doesn’t demand silence in exchange for belonging.
Today, January 25 marks three years since I formed my LLC. It also happens to be my birthday. I don’t treat that as symbolism. Just timing. A reminder that some things take years to arrive, and that the most meaningful shifts are often quiet when they happen.
This chapter isn’t an ending or a beginning.
It’s a decision.
To move forward with clarity. To stay human. To build alongside people who understand that care isn’t passive, that thoughtfulness isn’t weakness, and that integrity lives in what we choose, day after day.
If something in this feels familiar, that’s enough.
Stay awhile.
Look around.
—
Tasha Monroe
Founder, Simply Edyn & Co.