The Toddler, the Taxman, the Trauma and My Studio Dreams

I’ve been circling the same question for months now: do I stay small, or do I start something bigger? Today I’m freelancing, which has its charms. Freedom. No office politics beyond me arguing with myself over coffee. But there’s a ceiling. A literal one, because I’ve hit the point where my tax system tells me: congratulations, you’re successful enough to pay more. Or restructure. Or finally decide what you want to be when you grow up.

I’m angry about it, if I’m honest. Not just because paying taxes is bad, but because it forces me into a corner before I’ve even finished painting the walls. I wanted to linger a little longer in this space of small, but thriving. Instead, bureaucracy is standing there tapping its foot, saying: you need to scale, or you need to shrink.

And then there’s work itself. Work is a strange, shape-shifting animal. Some days it is a faithful dog, loyal, waiting at the door with new ideas to chase. Other days it’s a sitcom laugh track playing at all the wrong moments. Work is the clack of a keyboard at two in the morning, when every sentence feels both profound and profoundly stupid. Work is Zoom faces frozen mid-blink, Google Docs that lag just enough to gaslight you, calendars that multiply like rabbits until you’re not sure which Tuesday you live in anymore. Work is the sticky note that falls off the monitor and disappears forever, and the invoice that takes six polite follow-ups to be noticed. It is half-drunk cups of coffee gone cold, and the deep betrayal of opening your laptop on a Sunday to just check something. Work is a cult you’re not sure you joined willingly, and yet here you are.

Freelancing feels like having a toddler in the room and a diaper in your hand. You can choose when to put it on, but the moment you slack, chaos happens. You do the small, unpleasant, repetitive work because otherwise everything leaks everywhere. You clean, you organize, you chase the tiny catastrophes, but you can pause. You can hide under the couch with your coffee if the day gets too much. Scaling up, though, is like deciding the diaper stays off but the child will have to learn to hold it. You don’t do it because it’s fun. You do it because the small, tedious tasks are the foundation. And suddenly everything is constant. Every process, every client, every decision. There is no hiding under the couch anymore. There is only moving forward. And of course, the man of seriousity is always excited about scaling up.

Starting a studio feels like a step into clarity. A chance to bring others in, share the load, do work that’s bigger than what fits on my own desk. But I’d be lying if I said the word owner didn’t make my stomach turn. I’ve been there before. Ownership is not just responsibility, it’s baggage. It’s late-night phone calls, it’s anxiety in a tailored suit, it’s trauma dressed up as leadership. To own is to hold both the successes and the failures so tightly they leave marks on your hands. And though I know the script, I’m not sure I want to audition for that part again.

But maybe this time is different. Maybe this new thing could become a home for the Better Internet ideas I’ve been carrying around, a space where nostalgia and ethics and slow design aren’t side projects but the main stage. Maybe it could be a way to make value for myself, not only for clients. To finally be the person who gets paid even when clients go full villain and refuse to pay after months of delivered work, as if the project magically evaporated from the cloud. At the very least, a studio should mean fewer polite email reminders that start with just checking in and end with me screaming into a pillow. And yes, part of this is also about drawing clearer lines. No more unpaid favors disguised as opportunities.

With a studio, there is no pretending anymore. There is no I’ll get to it next week. No hiding under the couch. The work will have to be done because other people will be in it with me and the walls will have our name on them. The small, repetitive tasks are unavoidable, and if you skip them, then shame on you. That is the difference between freelance and studio. Freelancing lets you pause, stall, even disappear when necessary. A studio demands consistency, reliability, and a strange kind of patience with the small hard stuff. Scaling sustainably is not just about chasing profit. It’s about learning to respect the process, to embed ethics and craft into every layer, so the system doesn’t collapse under its own ambition.

So I’m trying to be kind to myself in this moment. It’s not a failure to hit a tax threshold, it’s a sign of growth. It’s not laziness to acknowledge the finite number of hours in my calendar, it’s honesty. And it’s not weakness to say that work is both love and frustration, it’s just being human.

Some days, the dilemma feels like a burden. Other days, it feels like a crossroads I get to stand at, which is a privilege in itself. Whichever path I take, I want to do it on my terms, without rushing. And if nothing else, I know this a new studio might be coming. Or at least a new website.

If you need me, I’ll be under my desk, negotiating with spreadsheets, whispering to myself about the Better Internet, reminding bad clients that invoices aren’t optional, and channeling the man of seriousity, who nods gravely and insists that scaling up is the only sensible thing to do.
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