THE NEW SUCCESS

SHE WAS A FAMOUS WRITER AT 23, AN EDITOR AT 27 AND FOUNDED A DIGITAL BRAND BY 30. BUT WHEN SARAH RAPHAEL FINALLY GOT TO THE TOP, WHY DID IT ALL FEEL SO... empty?

I've always loved that point in conversation when one story has finished and received the appropriate laughs, and next comes that loaded question: “So, what do you do?” For the past 10 years, I’ve been confident of my answer: “I’m a journalist and an editor.” This was almost always followed up by “That’s interesting, who for?”, then I’d get to really flex, because I’d been the bigwig editor at cutting-edge media companies, from fashion magazine i-D to Refinery29, for close to four years. What came with that was an enormous amount of social cachet, demonstrated through nodding heads and whispers of “Cool” and “Wow” when I told new acquaintances.

You see, that was the bulk of who I was in my twenties, until I realised that I couldn’t keep up with the fiercely ambitious and successful person I’d created. After all, it’s a vast space between how things sound at a party and how they feel day-to-day. And, at the too-young age of 31, after I’d worked so hard to get to where I was, I realised I no longer wanted it.