The Days I Chose to Show Up — Day Two: Still Becoming

Still Becoming

By Olayide Juliana

If there’s one lesson—scratch that, if there are a thousand lessons I’ve learned from watching the great blockbuster series Mad Men, I only hope I truly internalize them.

I hope I haven’t just watched for entertainment, to pass time, or to check off a classic. I hope every word, line, scene, and character deposited something lasting—something I might never get taught, even when I live out all my years on earth.

Normally, after I watch a series, I start looking up the actors.

I search for who they are in real life, what they’ve starred in before or after, their interviews, their quirks, their Instagram accounts... And once I do that, I usually feel that emotional detachment. Like the magic breaks a little.

I say to myself, “Oh, they’re just actors playing a part,” and I move on.

But not with Mad Men.

This one won’t let me go.

Something about it keeps hitting hard. Keeps calling me back.

My eyes have opened. My knowledge expanded. My perspective sharpened—in the best possible way.

And now... I’m scared.

Scared of moving on too quickly.

Scared I won’t hold on to what I’m learning.

Scared I’ll forget.

Because this—this doesn’t feel like just entertainment.

It feels like an awakening.


I am a young, freewheeling career girl.

Ambitious. Full of dreams. Full of quiet power.

Hoping someday to find a man I can lovingly submit to, walk beside, and chase ten thousand dreams with—fulfilling God’s will together.

I’m becoming. I’m building.

And Mad Men, for all its mess, gave me a mirror.

Not of who I am…

but of the world I am walking into—and the kind of woman I never want to stop becoming.

I’ve read about almost every cast member.

I thought that would dull the magic, like it usually does.

But no.

Even now, as I watch episode 13 of season 3… I still shed a tear.

I still scream.

I still hope things turn out differently.

I still cheer for moments when the words finally get said…

…when the past catches up with the present in a redemptive whisper.


I just hope I never forget.

I hope I carry all of this with me—

The fire, the ache, the clarity, the knowing.

With love,

Juliana.


My name is Olayide Juliana, a steward.

I believe that light shed, knowledge shared, and beliefs reviewed can make both me and the world better.

P.S. I actually wrote this yesterday, but I chose to post it today. This is Day 2 of “The Days I Chose to Show Up.”

Day 3 comes with a fire I didn’t expect. It’s the moment I realized some causes never really leave you. Stay close.

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