Getting here has not been easy. We stumbled into the bridal suite at the Wythe Hotel sometime after two in the morning, had triumphant wedding-night sex for approximately four minutes before collapsing in exhaustion, and spent all of Sunday making post-wedding, pre-honeymoon arrangements. I wrote a follow-up email to Jen at The Knot answering all of her questions and begged the travel company sponsoring my honeymoon to let me change the name on the second set of tickets from Blake Barrett to Raj Goyal. Meanwhile, Raj convinced his manager to let him take a week off, then sprinted to three different department stores before he could find a single bathing suit available for purchase in late October. It’s been that long since his last vacation. Then, this morning, after helping Sophie and Jess pack and ship all the orders that tumbled in over the weekend, I re-signed Brooklyn Jewels’s lease and gave our landlord a fat check. By the time Raj and I made it to our gate at the airport, we had just minutes to spare.

Now seated on the plane, I check my phone one last time. There’s a text from Carmen that I must have missed while sprinting through the airport. I tap it open and see an aggressive number of words spelled out in capitals and more exclamation points than I’ve ever seen her use—and she’s a pretty intense person.

“I know you’re about to leave for your honeymoon (!!!) so I’ll keep this brief, buuuuut . . . I GOT IT!!!!! I got it. FUNDING with CECELIA SUNDQUIST. I raised five million dollars in Series A and I am IN BUSINESS, BABY!!!!! Thank you to the moon and back for ALL YOUR HELP!!!! Love you love love you forever xoxoxoxo!!!!!”

I gasp and show Raj the text. “Carmen did it!” I exclaim.

But he’s already reading a nearly identical text on his own phone. “She wants to bring me on full-time,” he says. “She offered me a job! For a lot of money.”

“Would you take it?” I ask.

“She’s awesome. We’ll have to talk when I get back from our honeymoon, but I don’t see why not,” he says.

I can’t help but grin as I type a congratulatory text back to Carmen.

When I turn my phone onto airplane mode, thus entirely disconnecting myself from the outside world, I feel a wave of relief. It’s been a long, stressful six months glued to my phone. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for the way social media has skyrocketed my business to a new level of success. I know how lucky I am to be able to garner a following and capitalize on their support. But I’m also looking forward to a week away when I can just be me, Eliza, not Eliza, the girl behind @brooklynjewels.