The Girlboss is Dead. Long Live the Girl Loss.
I must have a Big Mouth because I'm going through changes
Emily For President has seen me through a lot of major life changes over the last two years. Currently, this gorgeous little world I’ve built is sustaining me more than it has ever had to before: I recently lost my job and have spent the past month constantly reckoning with how I see myself as an employee and which direction I want to steer my future in, in addition to managing the general stresses of seeking out re-employment and making sure I’m able to pay all of my bills. It’s a scary place I never expected to be, but it’s not something I can just avoid—I have to keep living through the new anxieties and fears and stresses, regardless of how I feel each day.
I should also make it clear that I’m not naive enough to believe I’m unique in this experience—I mean, more than half of Twitter was laid off right after me so the “same boat” is currently Titanic-lifeboat-level full. But one thing I’m learning is how changes, no matter how universally experienced, can be so profoundly isolating.
Whether it’s a job loss, a breakup, or a big move, it can feel in the moment like no one understands how you’re feeling or what you’re going through. So to combat the scary thoughts I myself have been playing on repeat, I wanted to talk to someone who can speak about seismic life shifts at this current moment better than anyone else I know.
Today, I’m talking with Sara Delgado about a whole multitude of things from her love of dining culture and restaurants to how she has weathered a season of acute change in her life. Initially, I reached out to Sara to talk about her love of food and wine because, since meeting her in early 2020, I’ve had to set up a folder in my camera roll to store screenshots of her delectable Instagram stories for whenever I need recommendations at a moment’s notice.
However, our conversation took a welcomed turn toward talking about how Sara has dramatically changed her life this past year by breaking up with her partner of six years, leaving her comfortable job, and deciding to move from Atlanta to New York City at the start of the new year.
During our chat, I realized how much I personally needed the confirmation that you can be scared of change and still lean into all it has to offer and that others might need to hear that, too.
Sara Delgado is an Atlanta-based writer, product marketer, and in the words of Thorgy Thor (circa RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars Season 2), "she's actually not a witch, just an eccentric Gemini." Hailing from San Francisco but raised in Atlanta, Sara is a self-proclaimed city girl with a soft spot for southern hospitality. Despite having eaten at nearly 450 restaurants in Atlanta, Sara doesn't see herself as a foodie but more so just as a really good eater. When Sara isn't writing or launching features, you can find her sipping martinis, plotting out her next chapter of life in New York City, and wondering, "What's for dinner?"
Girl’s Gotta Eat
I met Sara the same way I met a lot of my favorite people: while working at Glossier. Whoever managed the hiring process for the Atlanta pop-up in 2020 picked some of the most stunning and inspiring people, with Sara being a shining example.
I’m slightly obsessed with her and her love of food so I wanted to dive right into her world by asking:
Emily: Can you give an overview of your life's story in 5 sentences or less?
Sara: Born in San Francisco. Bred in Atlanta. Raised by Filipino immigrants. Loves to eat. Hates being bored.
Emily: What are your relationships with restaurants and food like?
Sara: Earned, symbiotic, mutually beneficial.
I love restaurants. I love food. Whether it’s a big dinner party with friends or sitting at the bar alone, I’m at my happiest when I’m seated at a table, gazing at the plate in front of me, taking a sip of my wine, and laughing and chatting with people.
I also find that the only time I’m able to truly quiet my mind is when I’m cooking. It’s very meditative for me. Setting up my station, mentally mapping out the recipe, cleaning up in between steps, and pouring all of my energy into a final product? I’ve never felt runner’s high, but I imagine it’s sort of like that.
See what I mean? Literally the coolest.
Now, while I do love food (and I did kind of go through a big foodie phase back in February—not to flex), I know next to nothing about restaurants themselves. Before we talk about how Sara left her relationship, job, and city within the span of seven months (definitely to flex), I would be remiss not to ask Sara about her dining culture expertise:
Emily: What are your hottest takes on the restaurant industry?
Sara: A city’s dining scene is only as strong as its diners. I tried to get to this in my first column, “How to Be a Good Eater,” but I think I could’ve gone deeper.
There should be a balanced relationship between a restaurant and its diners. That’s probably my favorite part about dining out—how it feels like a pretty fair and equitable exchange. I enter an establishment and pay for goods and services. Not to make it sound so transactional but at the end of the day, when you strip away stars, reviews, pomp, decor, ambiance… that’s all it really is. It doesn’t have to go any further than that, and I think a lot of people (*cough* foodies *cough*) feel entitled to some otherworldly experience that they saw on Chef’s Table or Instagram.
If you look at the role social media alone has played on restaurant culture, it’s drained the magic and serendipity out of dining. We’re all looking at lists and dining experiences through another person's lens. We’re not really asking ourselves, “what am I craving?” but more so, “what is everyone else eating?” Food and dining shouldn’t be driven by trends and likes.
Everyone gets to be a diner, but not a restaurant owner - and I think that’s where the imbalance stems. The diner’s individual voice and dollar have never been more influential, so I really empathize with restaurants because unless you’ve worked in restaurants or the service industry, how else would you know? End rant.
Emily: What are your top three restaurant recommendations in any part of the world?
Sara: Oh my god, in the world?
Swan Oyster Depot in San Francisco is an institution. It’s absolutely worth the wait. Especially if you’re visiting from a landlocked city like Atlanta, the seafood will blow your mind. Last fall, I fell in love with Restaurant Le Servan in Paris and made it a point to eat there as much as I could back in April. It’s kind of the perfect Parisian bistro.
Lastly, Miller Union in Atlanta. I swear I feel like a part of my soul now lives in the 40s (a section of tables) due to the sheer quantity of dear memories and peerless meals encased in that restaurant.
Emily: What is the best dish you've ever had in a restaurant and why?
Sara: I’m going to answer this from the POV of consistency because I’m bad at answering this (defining the “best” is impossible for me, and it’s not what I’m after. It also usually leads to some kind of hype that a dish can’t live up to).
I know it’s not technically a restaurant, but the “best” dish I’ve ever had would probably be the Costco hotdog: boiled all beef dog, a line of ketchup and mustard and a few dots of relish. I’ve eaten a lot of incredible dishes that I would happily eat again, but when I think of the “best”, I really think of something that I could go back to again and again because the enjoyment is consistently optimal. The Costco hotdog does that for me.
Plus, you can’t really over-hype a $1.50 hotdog.
As someone who spent a considerable number of weekends in various Costcos around Connecticut growing up, I could not have dreamed up a more iconic answer than this.
But we couldn’t ponder the dominance of Costco in my or my friends’ collective memories for too long because I wanted to pivot us into our larger conversation. I asked Sara:
Emily: How have you found ways to lean into your passions, and how has that shaped your path in life moving forward?
Sara: As you can imagine, ending a relationship of 6 years and uncoupling myself from someone I spent many of the formative years of my life with was (and still is) an incredibly painful process. In my lowest moments post-breakup, I was terrified that the pain and grief would become part of my body.
When we suffer loss or go through traumatic episodes in life, the pain and grief inevitably become part of our DNA. I wanted to mitigate that damage as much as possible, so I found my way back into things I was passionate about before, like writing about food and restaurants.
It’s time to rip off the bandaid, kids. Let’s dive into it.
Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
For this piece, I Googled the question, “why are people scared of change?” which warranted the “no shit” kind of response it received: according to a 2017 article in Inc.,
Neuroscience research teaches us that uncertainty registers in our brain much like an error does. It needs to be corrected before we can feel comfortable again, so we'd rather not have that hanging out there if we can avoid it.
We also fear change because we fear that we might lose what's associated with that change. Our aversion to loss can even cause logic to fly out the window (X).
Fear of change stems from a fear of being out of control, which is fully reasonable. But then what happens when you’re in control of the change? I asked Sara:
Emily: How have the last six months shifted the trajectory of your life?
Sara: HA! Irreversibly. There’s that TikTok trend about telling yourself in January 2022 what lies ahead and I relate to it a bit too much.
Emily: When did you realize you needed to make changes in your life?
Sara: When I really think back on how long there had been a voice in my head whispering “are you sure?”, I think I had been feeling uneasy since last November. The more self-assured and confident I started to feel in the person I was becoming, the more distant I felt from my relationship. It wasn’t until May this year that I sort of woke up, and the only thing harder than admitting that to myself was confessing it to someone that I had built a life with.
During our conversation, Sara mentioned how a lot of her desire for change was stirred up around the total lunar eclipse back in mid-May (and if you just rolled your eyes at that statement, unpack your internalized misogyny and come back to us when you’ve grown the fuck up). Her realization made me realize that I lost my job around the partial solar eclipse at the end of October, so I absolutely had to ask:
Emily: What are eclipses and what has been their effect on your life this past year?
Sara: You know, say what you want about astrology but through conversations with friends, a lot of relationships ended in May and October this year. In astrology, lunar and solar eclipses are like supercharged full and new moons. They’re potent moon phases that usher in massive, sweeping changes into our lives.
It’s easy to live in the dogma of your day-to-day and sort of accept to live life the way you always have, and eclipses are like a big “eject” button that puts you on the path you’re meant to be on.
Sara’s musings on eclipses made me realize something: maybe she didn’t have as much control over the changes in her life as I previously thought. Sara told me she spent untold hours reckoning with the emotions that led her to irrevocably change her life and knew what decisions she had to make, even if it wasn’t 100% what she wanted. The way she explained it, it seemed almost as if change had come for her regardless of what she did or said—like a power bigger than herself nudged her to choose the correct if albeit most painful option available to her.
With that in mind, I asked her:
Emily: You said that breaking up with your long-term boyfriend was the hardest thing you ever did. Why did you decide to do it?
Sara: I just laughed at the word “boyfriend” because that’s such a cute word. I think he was my boyfriend for the first 2 years but eventually turned into my best friend, confidante, partner, champion, and sometimes my adversary. I guess there comes a point in a lot of long-term relationships—especially ones where you started dating quite young—where you sort of have to decide to either double down on what you’ve been invested in for so long, or recognize that in order to grow you need to step out on your own.
For better or for worse, I lost sight of myself in my relationship. I was so wrapped up in our relationship dynamic, rather than spending time developing myself and trusting my intuition. I prioritized my happiness as it existed in our relationship, instead of asking myself: “what makes Sara happy?”
It’s hard to come to terms with the fact that someone who once made you feel so seen and alive no longer does that.
Change, when it’s the most necessary, is rarely a choice—either it’s a decision someone else makes for us (as was the case for me), or it’s a decision we have no other real option but to make, as Sara explained.
Hearing it put that way, it’s no wonder we’re all terrified of it.
Saoirse Ronan Exasperatingly Saying “Women” in Little Women (2019)
One part of my conversation with Sara deviated slightly from the rest but stood out to me more than everything else, and explaining why requires a bit of oversharing: as someone who lives with anxiety, I can’t say I am my biggest advocate or champion. While this inner voice is always annoyingly nit-picky and critical, it is not often relentlessly cruel…but it certainly has been this past month!!!
Instead of welcoming in a moment to create positive change in my life, my mind has been incessant about telling me how much of a failure I am. No matter what anyone has said to try to comfort me, I’m still in this odd place between acknowledging that I have time to try so many different things in my professional life and feeling pressured by external expectations and my own desire to be successful.
This all brings me to the thing Sara shared that stuck with me: even though she was assured in the decisions she made, she said that she still felt some hesitation to make the very changes she knew would ultimately make her happy. As she explained, “there’s something about high-achieving women…who suffer from being intensely difficult on themselves that they never know when to throw in the towel.”
I wanted her to dive further into this so I asked:
Emily: Why do you think high-achieving women in particular are so hesitant to make the necessary changes needed to make their lives more sustainable?
Sara: I think I’m part of a generation of young women that particularly struggle with this. I’m specifically speaking about anyone who watched The Devil Wears Prada and saw a possible career path, was gifted Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg when they graduated high school or college, or participated in the rise and decline of the Girlboss era.
For some reason, even as women inherit more freedom and options to do whatever we want, we’re still being directed down a select few paths and we’re constantly being pitted against one another: the career woman vs the housewife, Marilyn vs Jackie O, Cassie vs Maddy, Blair vs Serena. It’s such a tired but highly effective trope. And on the other side of that argument is this all-consuming desire to “have it all.”
It can feel like a lose-lose where the bar to be an exceptional woman is so unrealistically high and anything beneath it can be interpreted as failure.
There’s a chapter in Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino called “Always Be Optimizing” that explores this psychosis really well. It’s more or less a punchline now to say that as a woman, if you’re going to deviate from the norm in any way, you have to work 100x harder than any man would. But what’s heartbreaking is that mentality just isn’t sustainable. It’s hard enough to lead a life that sustains.
I think as soon as we start divorcing our idea of success from what was laid out for us or paved previously by men, we’ll find that we never really needed to bend, pluck, and shape ourselves to meet some ideal. I think it’ll be really freeing.
Like Ali Wong said, “I don’t wanna lean in, I wanna lie down.”
One of the double-edged swords of social media is the way it allows us to curate how our lives look to others: a 2015 study from researchers at the University of Edinburgh actually found that “people self-reported many routine kinds of lying, deception, and omission strategies, reflecting a variety of needs and coping strategies for sustaining healthy, safe, and fun social interactions online.”
When Sara and I talked, I confessed that I had suspected she was going through some big changes offline but that her gorgeous social media presence confused me and held me back from reaching out in case everything was as it seemed. To me, she still appeared to be the woman who had it all, so who was I to question that?
Obviously, that was stupid of me to believe!!!!! Social media is fake!!!! And this line of thinking only served to perpetuate the wrong beliefs that Sara just described so now, I am questioning that:
Emily: How has social media either helped or hindered you as you go through this period of immense change?
Sara: I’ve thought about this extensively since a loooooot of people in my life knew me as so-and-so’s girlfriend. I knew I wasn’t going to hard launch or announce my breakup—that’s literally my day job as a product marketing manager, taking products to market, owning the messaging/positioning/pricing/etc., so applying that mentality to my personal life felt fucked up.
But also, I knew I had to sort of rebrand myself, especially if I wanted to pursue food writing in a semi-professional capacity. People already know me as this person who likes to eat and drink around town, but I’ve never let people get to know me as a writer before.
TikTok has been therapeutic, and like everyone else, my FYP is scarily accurate. Honestly, I treat Instagram like I’m throwing up a smokescreen. I think I’ve been burned by sharing too much in the past, so now I’m a bit more reserved and try to stick to specific topics/themes. Ultimately, I think social media hurts us more than it helps. If not for my side hustle as a writer, I probably would’ve gone dark on Instagram for a few months after the breakup.
In hindsight, I wish I had given myself some more time off the grid.
Thinking about these two responses—the pressures we place on ourselves to look and feel okay even in times of upheaval—along with the way I inadvertently fed into the isolation I mentioned at the start of this piece by not reaching out to a friend when I suspected she might need some support brought me back to a realization I’ve repeatedly had for the past month: thank fuck for my friends.
Every time I start mentally heading down that path Sara described, thinking about how my current failure deviates from the ideas of success others have laid out for me and subsequently beating myself up in response, there has been someone there to at least attempt to soften the blows. Having gone through periods of stability without much of a support system, I have been overwhelmed with the gratitude I have for my friends at a moment of sudden change, which is why it was incredibly affirming to hear Sara felt the same:
Emily: Where do you find your strength and confidence to make hard decisions and move through major life changes?
Sara: My family and friends…well, mostly my friends.1
When you’re undergoing massive life change, you realize there are people who are meant to be in your life because they’ll meet you on the other side. I feel so fortunate to be in a time of my life where I only have a few close friends with whom I can disclose how I actually feel. I know deep down that my joy is their joy (and vice versa). They’ll put me in my place when I’ve stepped out of line and they’re not afraid of hurting my feelings—not that they do but they’re not going to sugarcoat things.
Optimism!!! Get Your Optimism Here!!!
Even as I talked with Sara about the era of her life that may very well be the hardest she’ll have to survive, I couldn’t help but feel a swell of happiness when I heard her words. At no point did she claim that the past year has been easy for her—quite the opposite—and yet, here my Hallmark-movie-believing ass was, hopeful for her future and mine.
Thinking about everything she had told me so far, I wanted to ask Sara:
Emily: Even though you have literally lost things you once had in the sense that you no longer have them, do you feel like you are lacking anything without them?
Sara: No. I mean, honestly I think I had more of a lack mindset before the breakup. Not because my relationship wasn’t enough, I want that to be clear. The lack mindset grew from treating my life like a checklist, something I could execute against. Like I would get to a place where I felt good in my career, then move onto the next thing—whether it was my relationship, buying a house, getting a dog, etc. I was on this nonstop chase for all of these things that I thought would make me happy because I saw how “happy” it made everyone else.
That mentality basically created a breeding ground for constantly feeling like I was “lacking” something. Comparison really is the thief of joy.
This response stopped me in my tracks: how many of us wish our lives looked different, or at least more like someone else’s? If the 67 people who responded to my Instagram story are to be believed, we kind of all do in some way:
While I’m obviously not saying my current situation is ideal, there are probably so many people who wish they were able to change their career path right now…including 20 that I know:
We’re all going to end up in the throes of changes eventually—as my dad once said about the economy’s constant shifts, that’s just life. Acknowledging it won’t immediately cure my anxious spirals or heal Sara’s heart, but it may allow us to turn our blinders off a little more and perhaps be more inviting for the next best thing when it arrives.
Riding on that twee optimistic high, I asked Sara:
Emily: What do you wish you had known a year ago?
Sara: I don’t think there’s anything I wish I had known a year ago that would’ve spared me any less pain now. For the first time in my life, I really trust the path I’m on. It was a rollercoaster to get here, but if I had to tell Sara from a year ago something it would be to just enjoy it while she still has it. It’s such a privilege to love and be loved the way my then-partner loved me.
Emily: What is the most important thing you have learned in the last six months?
Sara: I’m going to steal this from TikTok (again), but: “Being single (or alone) sucks, but nothing compares to the loneliness you’ll feel not being seen in your relationship.” Another great piece of advice a friend gave to me was, “You’re destined for greatness, so why not start now.” I’ve sort of led with that mentality since.
If it scares and excites you at the same time, do it. Start now.
Emily: What are you most looking forward to in your life?
Sara: Currently? Season 4 of Succession.
Just kidding! It would have to be moving to New York City in the new year. It seems cliché, but I feel like it’s been waiting for me.
If Taylor Swift is to be believed, it is.
Thank you so much to Sara for scheduling a chat with me and then immediately having the chat right then and there because we got just so excited. It’s been a weird fucking year and people like her make me hopeful that next year will be marginally less so.
Check out Sara’s recent article in Eater (the first in her new monthly column) and subscribe to the Side Dish Newsletter to read more of her delectable content!!!
(My parents were not initially very supportive of my breakup.)