hi! I'm Katie!

Leaving the default script, navigating the in-between, and why we are allowed to live more than one life.

Hi. I’m Katie.

I’ve started a newsletter three times now.

Before this, I spent years building a digital footprint around the clean, predictable mechanics of tech and design. I wrote about UX frameworks, startups, and product design over on Medium. I loved the logic of it—the satisfaction of things built to function perfectly.

But when I tried to launch this space, I found myself instinctively drifting back into those same comfortable lanes. I got two issues in, hit a wall, and stopped. Twice. The writing looked crisp on the screen, but it felt completely hollow in my chest.

I was trying to optimize an identity I had already outgrown. I thought I was supposed to stay inside the room I built for myself.

This is the third version. It’s the honest one.

I’ve rebranded this space to the multiple lives theory because I’ve realized something about adulthood that nobody really warns you about: we are rarely just one person. What I actually want to write about is the slow, terrifying, and liberating exit from a default life. The psychological in-between where you’ve courageously dismantled the old structure, but you haven’t built the new one yet.

I want to talk about the math of going freelance, the friendships you can feel shifting while you’re still on the phone, and the version of yourself you were promised by 32 who never showed up—leaving you to realize you have to invent her yourself.

The thoughts that happen when you’re making coffee at 11:00 AM, and the quiet realization hits that nobody is looking for you, and you are entirely free.

I used to look for external mirrors to figure out how to be patient, how to “just be” in a moment. But the truth is, the patience isn’t hidden in another culture or a different country. It’s an internal muscle we have to build right here, in the messy middle of our own transitions.

Without boxing myself into a rigid corporate calendar, here is what you can expect from me in this space:

• Raw, Unperformed Essays: Deep dives into identity, career pivots, money, and what it actually feels like to drop the script in your thirties. No five-step listicles, no toxic positivity—just the real mechanics of changing your life.

• Notebook Snapshots: Shorter, unfiltered dispatches. A question I’m sitting with, an observation from the freelance trenches, or a raw thought straight from my morning coffee routine.

I’m not here to perform clarity that I don’t have yet. I’m just here to document the evolution.

A little bit about the current version of me: I’m a self-taught web developer, designer, and writer based in Sydney. Vietnamese-Australian. I’ve gone from deep science research, to fast-paced startups to corporate cubicles, and now to full-time freelance.

I drink too many iced lattes and ideating on jelly recipes, and I’m actively learning how to exist in the morning instead of constantly living three hours ahead of it.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re outgrowing the life you built and feel you are trapped between the script you were given and the multiple lives you keep imagining, I think you’ll find a home here.

Glad you’re here.

Katie xx