One more step.

One more step.

A Lesbian Journey from a Powerless Chaos to a Powerful Community

13th small step forward. ✨

Step Thirteen — This was the week I stopped feeling like a woman with a dream and started behaving like the founder of one.

Last year I went to Pride hoping to find inspiration. This year I went carrying a microphone, a camera, a website, a community and a vision that finally had a name. Somewhere between those two versions of me, something changed. I stopped feeling like somebody with an idea. I started feeling like its founder. But if someone had asked me what I achieved over the past couple of weeks, my first answer probably would have been: “Not much.” It certainly didn’t feel like one of those weeks filled with dramatic milestones or exciting announcements. There were no major launches, no overnight success stories and no moments that would make an impressive headline on social media. Instead, it felt as though I had spent days going around in circles. More than once, I closed my laptop convinced I had spent an entire afternoon achieving absolutely nothing.

Founder life has a funny way of looking like failure while quietly laying the foundations. Because when I stopped measuring those days by what I had produced and started measuring them by what I had learned, I realised something important. Progress had been happening all along. It just wasn’t the kind of progress anyone sees. And, for the first time, I feel I understand not just the dream, but how to build it.

For a long time, I thought progress would look exciting. I imagined breakthroughs, celebrations and moments where everything suddenly made sense. Instead, these past weeks taught me that progress often hides inside the most ordinary tasks. Hours spent understanding systems, hours creating content, hours solving problems nobody else will ever notice. It isn’t glamorous work. In fact, while you’re doing it, it can feel as though you’re standing completely still. But perhaps foundations are supposed to feel invisible. After all, nobody admires the concrete beneath a beautiful building, yet without it, nothing else can stand. Sometimes success isn’t built through spectacular breakthroughs. Sometimes it’s built by solving one small problem so thoroughly that you never have to solve it again. Every new skill reminded me that I am far more capable than fear had allowed me to believe in the past. I have spent days refining the website, making dozens of small improvements that most visitors will never consciously notice. Yet together they changed how the whole website feels.

Those frustrating hours taught me skills that will quietly save me time every single week. They weren’t glamorous lessons, but they were foundations. Preparing for Pride meant teaching myself skills I had never imagined needing only a few months ago, from filming and editing videos to interviewing people I have never met before.

Perhaps the greatest surprise wasn’t discovering that I could learn new technology. It was discovering how resourceful I have become. Every problem that appeared eventually became something I could solve. Not because somebody rescued me, but because I stayed curious long enough to figure it out. Somewhere between broken links, video editing, interviews, website redesigns and community building, I quietly stopped seeing obstacles as reasons to give up. They became invitations to learn something new instead.

While improving the website, another realisation quietly appeared. Building a community is very different from building a website. A website can be designed and redesigned. A community has to be nurtured. One conversation reminded me of that. A friend gently pointed out that although the website was becoming stronger, the WhatsApp Community was still very quiet. She was right. Communities don’t grow because we create them; they grow because people find reasons to return.

That completely changed how I started thinking. Instead of treating the community like a noticeboard for announcements, I began imagining it as a living conversation with travel questions, discussion starters, pride conversations, introductions, recommendations, stories, laughter, friendships. Because followers aren’t really what I’m trying to build. I’m trying to build relationships, friendships, connections, belonging.

Perhaps that’s one of the biggest mindset shifts I’ve experienced this year. Now I realise I am building something much bigger: a community, a founder brand travel business, a future platform where women can discover destinations, meet other travellers and continue those connections long after the holiday ends. The real heart of Sapphic Journeys has never been technology. It’s always been people.

London Pride reminded me of that in the most beautiful way. This year, I didn’t attend Pride only as another person in the crowd. For the first time, I attended as the founder of Sapphic Journeys and that small change transformed the entire experience. Instead of simply watching the parade, I was telling stories, interviewing women, taking photographs, recording videos, creating content, meeting members of the community, networking, listening, learning. Representing something I have spent months quietly building.

Walking into London Pride this year felt completely different from every Pride before it. Last year, I arrived simply hoping to feel part of something bigger than myself. This year, I arrived carrying something of my own. For the first time, I wasn’t only attending Pride. I was representing a dream. Sapphic Journeys had a voice. It had a purpose. It had a name people could discover. That quietly changed the way I walked through the day. Every conversation mattered. Every photograph mattered. Every interview mattered. I wasn’t collecting content. I was beginning to tell the story of a community I hope will one day belong to thousands of women.

Preparing for Pride became an adventure in itself. Every new piece of equipment, every video I learned to edit, and every technical skill I taught myself felt intimidating at first. But each one made me a little more independent and a little more confident that I could keep telling this story. Every conversation taught me something; every interview reminded me why I started Sapphic Journeys in the first place, because connection happens one conversation at a time. Pride became a day filled with conversations, interviews, laughter, unexpected networking opportunities and the simple joy of feeling part of something bigger than myself again.

These past weeks have reminded me that confidence doesn’t arrive before we try something new. It arrives afterwards. Every new skill I taught myself- editing videos, understanding unfamiliar software, recording interviews, speaking to people- started with the same feeling: “I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing.” And yet, each time I kept going anyway. Little by little, confusion became familiarity, fear became experience, and I realised I was becoming more resourceful than I had ever given myself credit for.

The day itself was unforgettable. I thought London Pride would teach me how to create content; instead, it taught me something about myself. Standing there with a microphone, introducing myself as the founder of Sapphic Journeys, I realised I was doing something that would have felt impossible only a few months ago. And not because of the technology, but because I was allowing myself to be seen again.

From the Grandstand overlooking the parade, to photographing the atmosphere, meeting friends, laughing, walking through streets bursting with colour, celebration and authenticity, and ending the evening networking at the Microsoft Pride event, where one unexpected conversation may well open doors I never imagined. That conversation reminded me of something I’ve been learning again and again: opportunities rarely arrive while sitting at home.

They appear because we show up, even when we’re nervous, even when we’re tired, even when our knee is screaming in protest, and mine certainly was. By the time I’ve got home, I was exhausted, my knee was in agony, and it stayed painful and stiff for days afterwards. And yet, I don’t regret a single step. Because for months I dreamt about simply being able to return to life, to leave the house, to meet people, to hug a friend, to laugh, to belong somewhere again. And this time, despite the pain and stiffness, I did exactly that.

Perhaps the biggest change isn’t happening to Sapphic Journeys at all; perhaps it’s happening to me. For months I disappeared from the world without even noticing it. Pain has a way of making your life smaller; it teaches you to hide, to stay home, to avoid asking too much of your body or yourself. Yet these past weeks I’ve found myself standing in front of cameras, introducing myself to people, interviewing women, writing publicly and speaking about a vision that once existed only inside my own head. I don’t think I’m only building a community anymore. I think I’m slowly allowing myself to become visible again, trusting my voice, owning my vision, and becoming the founder I once believed only other people could be.

Perhaps that’s what these past weeks have really taught me. Progress isn’t always loud enough to celebrate the day it happens. Sometimes it whispers, it hides inside ordinary afternoons, technical frustrations, awkward first interviews, tiny flowers blooming after months of waiting, and conversations that may not change your life today but quietly change its direction tomorrow. Looking back, I no longer think I was going in circles; I think I was laying foundations, and foundations always disappear beneath the life we’re trying to build, but perhaps that’s the whole point. The strongest parts of our lives are the roots, the foundation, the pillars that often are built long before anyone else can see the beautiful life we are building.

Perhaps my favourite moment of these past weeks happened far away from computers, websites and business plans. One morning, my Hoya flowered. To somebody else, it might seem like a tiny thing, just another houseplant finally doing what houseplants eventually do. But this one is different; this Hoya has been part of my family’s story for generations, my dad’s houseplant, which made beautiful flowers after he passed away 33 years ago. Not the same plant, but the great-grandchildren of my dad’s favourite plant; it carries childhood memories, family history, dad-to-daughter continuity and connection.

Watching it bloom felt unexpectedly emotional; it reminded me that some of the most beautiful things in life ask for something we rarely enjoy giving. Patience. You water it, you care for it, you give it love and attention, you wonder whether anything is happening at all. Weeks pass, months pass, even years, still nothing changes. And then one morning, almost without warning, a flower appears where, like yesterday, I couldn’t see any. Looking at it, I couldn’t help thinking that perhaps people aren’t so different; healing grows like that, confidence grows like that, businesses, communities, relationships, friendships, they all grow like that, quietly, patiently, almost invisibly, until one day, what once looked like nothing suddenly becomes something beautiful.

Looking back now, I realise that perhaps progress has never really looked the way I imagined it would. I used to think transformation would arrive with fireworks, with dramatic breakthroughs, with one extraordinary Kodak moment that would change everything. Instead, it has arrived in hundreds of ordinary, tiny little moments: one interview, one blog, one conversation, one technical problem solved, one new friendship, one new follower, one networking event, one founder video, one tiny flower, one small step forward.

And perhaps that’s the greatest lesson these past weeks have given me. Progress doesn’t always feel exciting. Sometimes it feels repetitive, frustrating, unbelievably slow, almost invisible. So many times it even feels like you’re going in circles. Until one day you stop, look behind you and realise that you are nowhere near where you started.

Who I Am Today I am still learning, still healing, still building, still figuring things out one day at a time. But I am also becoming the founder I once hoped I could be, not because I suddenly know all the answers, but because I keep showing up, even when the work is invisible. For the first time, I stopped introducing Sapphic Journeys as an idea. I started introducing it as something that already exists. And perhaps that has been the biggest change of all. The dream hasn’t simply become more real; it has changed me.

What I Learned This Week Progress is rarely measured by how dramatic it looks. More often, it is measured by the quiet foundations we build when nobody is watching. Somewhere between the fear, the uncertainty, the late nights, the technical frustrations and the tiny victories, I quietly became the person this dream needed me to become. The work nobody applauds is often the work that changes us the most.

One Small Victory I stopped measuring success only by visible achievements and started recognising the value of the invisible work that makes everything else possible. For the first time, I stopped introducing Sapphic Journeys as an idea. I started introducing it as something that already exists. And, somewhere along the way, I stopped waiting for permission to call myself a founder. I simply became one.

Next Small Step The woman who walked into Pride this year wasn’t completely different from the woman who walked in last year. She was simply a little braver, a little wiser, a little more visible, and finally ready to believe that her dream deserved to take up space in the world. So, I will continue building patiently, trusting that every conversation, every lesson, every technical challenge and every act of courage is helping me create the community I have dreamed of for so long.

So today, Step Thirteen: Sometimes progress looks like going in circles. But perhaps circles are simply what growth looks like when we’re standing too close to recognise it and see how far we’ve really come. And, looking back, I realise that somewhere along the way, I stopped waiting for permission to call myself a founder. I simply became one. And if this story resonates with you, you are definitely not alone.

— Maddy —

Step 13 in becoming. 👣

© Magdalena Sora 2026. All rights reserved.

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