Between My Sheets—Episode 12: The UnCaging
When the thing you thought you needed wasn't even comfortable.
What if ReWriting a word-life starts with realizing the cage you're in isn't even comfortable?
New here? You may want to start at the beginning . . .
Because it turns out I’m writing a book disguised as a literary business model, disguised as a memoir unfolding in real time.
Between My Sheets is a living memoir of ReWriting a word-life one Friday at a time—with a Frenchman now two weeks back in Paris, a growing goat flock, a Lamb Chop with her voice (mostly) returned, and a front door that stayed quietly open all week.
Can I just say I’m glad you’re here?
Well, I am.
Now sink into this Friday moment—roughly an 11-minute read.
Welcome, you.
This week?
The tooth took more out of me than I expected.
The body said—rest.
So I did.
Hot damn, that was the whole strategy.
If I didn’t have this episode to write, I’d lay back down right now.
But here we are. Kit Kat curled on the chair—oversized, thankfully—beside me, belly exposed, fully trusting.
Lamb Chop sound asleep on her doggy bed at my feet, finally calm.
Goats fed after a chaotic few full moon nights—even though technically, the full part was only one.
And me—still upright.
Mostly.
A quiet little reminder to take amazing care of myself as I ease gently into my fifties.
Now. The honest part.
Last week, I cracked the front door open to a small slice of my email list.
This week, I managed to fix the three things that broke.
Not all at once. Not perfectly. Just one at a time—between bottle-feedings, between hoarse little Maahs, between a tooth that throbbed when I forgot to go slow and easy.
And the door . . . the door stayed open.
Quietly.
Without me pushing.
Without me posting on socials.
Without me even fully telling you it was open.
Last check?
547 orders.
Three things broke—all fixed.
That’s still a 94%-ish success rate, give or take a hot flash.
And I never fully shared.
Read that again.
547 orders. And I never even fully shared.
Instead, I tweak. I add to my to do list. I postpone flinging the doors open wide because it allows me to do what I do so well . . .
hide.
There it is.
I’m calling a spade a spade.
This is me outing myself.
Sharing my flaws.
Growing.
This is the (re)build. Scratch that.
This is the ReWrite—of me.
The uncaging of me.
Imagine if I stopped all the doing and focused more on letting people see me, read my words, experience my gifts.
That right there is my now-work.
Thursday, I flew off-island to St. Maarten for the tooth.
The mid-morning flight was a small mercy—no crack-of-dawn rush, no panicked goat-feeding sprint before sunrise.
Just a slightly civilized departure for once.
Although there was a goat incident just before I left.
Choupie unlatched the gate.
If you don’t know Choupie yet—she and Moo Baah are the smartest of my flock.
As solo babies, they watched me.
Open gates. Close gates.
And they learned.
Like Moo Baah here . . .
Solo goats are smart. They watch their humans. They learn.
Choupie waited for the right moment—thankfully when Woolley, the Lamb Chop was with me—and unlatched the bloody gate.
She got into Lamb Chop’s small pen, ate her hay, drank her water then got stuck in the small enclosed space.
Here I was walking up the hill with my faithful lamb by my side, bottle of milk in hand, when I go to open the gate and see Choupie, the intruder, in the wrong spot.
Mind you, I’m dressed for my trip and now have to open a gate, keep Woolley on the outside when she wants to rush in with me, and maneuver Choupie out of the way so I can quickly close the first gate on the poor baby.
Cue loud Maahs!
Getting Choupie back inside was easy after that, a simple opening of the inner gate and a gentle push . . . but then there was the matter of the “gate” she was able to open.
That gate is actually a small door into the baby’s house that is now part of Woolley’s space.
So before I could go anywhere, I was wedging wood and rocks against that door, to keep it closed, while also listening to Lamb Chop becoming increasingly anxious.
By the time brought her into her now-secure—I hope—and fed her, I was a hot mess.
But time was up . . . and I had to leave for the airport anyway.
So much for not chaotic and not rushing.
It’s always something in Goat World.
And then there was—what did I nickname him?
Lippy.
Yes, the friend and neighbor I said I’ll just delete you to back in Episode 6: The Opening when he threatened to subscribe to my email list.
He came to check on Lamb Chop for me while I was gone. And attempt to give bottles every three hours.
Friend. Neighbor. Now Lamb-sitter.
Look at us now.
Plot twist.
Lamb Chop was traumatized while I was gone.
She survived—but by the time I came home, she was clinging harder than ever.
Wednesday night I tried something new—because she’d just done something I couldn’t un-see. More on that in a beat.
I put her in her pen outside.
First night. Only night.
She cried most of it.
The first night in my own bed in more than a month and listened to her, unable to fall asleep because every Maah hit me like a tiny accusation.
The reason for this sudden eviction?
7pm Wednesday night I’m making her sticky milk concoction, turned my back for five seconds and she promptly peed on my rather nice sofa.
The sofa I protect at all costs.
The sofa that has been my uncomfortable bed for as long as she’s been alive.
So out she went . . . because my only option after trying to clean and salvage that sofa for an hour was my delicious king size bed.
But being gone all day Thursday and hearing her stressed cries when I came home, the softy in me gave in.
Back in the house she came, curled up on her doggy bed with a belly full of milk, she slept.
And with the sofa out of commission and not willing to risk her having access to my bed, I pushed two chairs and an ottoman together.
A sheet covering all, and me, plus a blanket and a pillow.
Makeshift. Imperfect. Not the obvious choice.
And here’s the thing.
It was more comfortable than the sofa.
More comfortable than feeling caged in on that sofa night after night for a month.
The thing I thought I needed wasn’t even comfortable.
The sofa wasn’t the answer. It was just the obvious choice.
The chair-ottoman wasn’t a compromise.
It was the actual thing, much more open and unrestrained—comfortable.
And I finally slept deeply, jaw aching a bit, but not enough to keep me awake.
Thankfully.
And then it hit me—because of course it did, because that’s how Between My Sheets works—
This is exactly what every bro-marketing voice has been doing to me for years.
PICK ONE THING.
Pick one focus.
Pick one offer.
Pick one path.
Pick one container.
The sofa.
The one container.
And I kept squishing myself onto it.
For four weeks.
Sigh.
I’ve been listening to others tell me how to be.
For nearly three decades.
Thinking I needed to.
Believing I needed permission to be.
Trying to fit who I am into someone else’s way of being.
Into their container.
Except for when I write . . . when I flow from my default setting—JOY.
Because I’m not one thing.
I never have been.
I am The JOYful Writer.
I am the magnetic storyteller.
I am Just Jill.
And I am Jill (in the messy middle) Stevens.
And I am the woman who guides people through transformation.
I am the ghost(writer) who built someone else’s empire.
And I am the quiet creator finally building her own.
I am the prolific creator who wakes at 3:33am.
And I am the tired one who allows a lamb to interrupt her life, her sleep, her home.
Multifaceted. All true. All real. All me.
And I’m done squishing them onto someone else’s sofa.
So here’s what’s forming.
Not fully formed. Not yet ready to launch in a tidy bow. But honest.
Two doors. One me.
Not a hallway.
Not a single open-plan loft.
Not the bro-marketer’s one-room mandate.
I’m creating a house with rooms.
With nooks and crannies.
Wide wrap-around porches.
And wild, overflowing, in-bloom gardens.
Sound familiar? (Episode 6: The Opening)
Turns out I’ve been writing the architecture of my own word-house since I was seventeen.
I just kept letting other people convince me to tear it down, put it on hold, do it their way.
547 sales from a cracked open door tell me my way is working.
That slow and steady—at the moment—is actually okay.
Because yes, I need focus. But no—I don’t need a caged box.
Maybe you can relate, Lovely Reader.
Maybe you’ve been told to pick one thing too.
Maybe your body has been whispering rest while the bro-voices in your head are screaming push, hustle, more.
Maybe your sofa peed itself this week (metaphorically, hopefully) and you’re realizing the chair-ottoman was the answer all along.
I hear that whisper within you because I have it too.
I see you. I hear you. I am you.
I say—
Pick you.
The whole, complicated, many-sided, multi-dimensional you.
That’s not scattered.
That’s coming home.
So here we are.
The tooth is half-fixed, round two and another trip to come, along with another flight, another trip and hopefully no more Choupie break-ins.
The Frenchman is on his next trip—I miss him in a quiet, grown-up way that doesn’t ache or require he do or say anything.
Lamb Chop has her voice (mostly) and a deep distrust of pens.
Choupie is officially the goat-shaped reminder to myself that multiple locks per gate are always required. Even on a small door.
Kit Kat is still curled belly-exposed beside me. The interloper who came in through a window, terrorized my two gray cats, and never left.
The sofa is sacrificed.
But thanks to Lippy and his steam cleaning machine, it might be saved.
The chair-ottoman has earned a permanent spot in my living room—and my well-rested heart.
The front door is open.
547 souls walked through.
And me?
I’m exhausted. My mouth is hella sore . . .
But I’m good, solid in the best possible way.
I’m finally allowing the uncaging of my thoughts, my beliefs—me.
A note on rhythm—as this weekly experiment unfolds, in real time—a once (re)build has literally become a JOYful ReWrite.
While I love the TGIF intimacy created for Between My Sheets—I’m no longer word-promising noon.
Just as I’m not allowing others to cage me, I’m no longer willing to cage myself to a noon time line.
This week, as my jaw ached, I wondered if even Friday-as-deadline is too much . . . but instead, I’m giving myself a bit of grace.
For now, the ritual stays.
The pressure can ease.
The words will always come.
Until next Friday, Lovely Reader.
Just Jill “two doors, one Jill, no cage” Stevens
💜
P.S. Once I hit publish on this episode my ReWrite on hiding is done and becomes a way of being in my past. It’s time.
Hello, self-awareness.
A Sneak Peek
The Balance Sheet
Because the numbers tell a story too.
Last week’s cracked-open door (311 orders in 48 hours) became this week’s quietly-tended door.
No social push. No big email blast. No “launch.”
Just a door I cracked open, fixed when something broke, and let breathe.
Episode 8—$5,243 from quiet beta offers.
No launch. No list. No social.
Episode 9—$5,756 from two emails sent between bottle-feedings.
51% yes rate.
Episode 10—$5,940 from one email to 83 readers.
44 new-to-me people walked in.
Episode 11—311 orders in 48 hours.
The door cracked open just a sliver.
Episode 12—547 orders. And I never fully shared.
The full math—average cart value, bump take rates, upsell conversion, the email-by-email breakdown of the soft-cracked door—is what The Balance Sheet itself will hold.
And it’s coming soon.
First access goes to readers who are already here.
Build it. Open it. Don’t push it. Let it breathe.
That’s divine.
The Balance Sheet—the paid extension of Between My Sheets—opens soon. Inside: the full numbers, the real systems, the deeper behind-the-scenes of building this word-business in real time. Plus extra word-bonuses I’m writing —Confessions of a Ghost(writer) and Agent Talks to name a few. First access goes to readers who are already here.
Watch this space.
If you want to follow this unfolding story each Friday,
you can subscribe below.
Just so you know: This is my slice of the web where hot flashes meet cold wine, neck waddles are real, and birthdays feel more like breakdowns. Step into my word-world as I (Re)Write my word-life in real time—finally as myself, no longer a ghost(writer). Side effects may include tears, laughter, and definitely more JOY.