So, it’s been almost two months since I wrote an essay. I’ve been largely ignoring the Substack world and creative writing in general. My life this summer has been: work, eat, sleep, hang out at the beach, get as many ice cream cones as possible, and see as many friends as I can stand to when I’m not working.
I picked a good season to abandon my creative writing routine. There’s so much else happening around me — art festivals, cold breezes by the lake, reunions with old college pals, watercolor sunsets in the Meijer parking lot. The summer is full of life and energy, and this year my schedule has allowed me to drink in as much of the season as possible. Thank goodness for freelancing. Thank goodness I’ve spent years getting to a point where I can log off early to go for a walk and not chastise myself for being “lazy.”
Ryan and I used to go to a cafe every Monday and work on our Substacks together. I don’t think we’ve been to that cafe on a Monday since May. We got to a point where it felt like we were wasting our time sitting around indoors when we could be doing something outside instead. I’m glad we listened to that internal nudge to switch up our schedules.
My plan when I went on this hiatus was to do something productive with my time that wasn’t Substack-related. Now I’m asking myself, why did I think I had to be productive during this time off? Why do so many of us feel this way, that when we take a break it has to be for something? That there has to be some grander purpose or reason to justify our rest?
I selfishly spent the past two months just doing stuff for the sake of doing stuff. I haven’t written about any of it, except maybe a little in my journal. But being the person that I am, I have this nagging feeling that I’m missing something in my everyday life. (Spoiler: It’s the writing. It’s always the writing.)
It turns out that if you take away your most consistent creative outlet and replace it with ~ nothing ~, you are going to feel kind of empty inside.
Still, I’m glad I took a break from writing essays every week. This little experiment helped me realize that I do need this outlet to feel grounded. (That kind of sounds like the start to a bad joke about electricity.)
So, I’m back! I’m ready to make this newsletter a consistent thing again.
However, there is one caveat. I was honestly feeling a bit overwhelmed by the weekly deadline when I stopped writing back in June, so I may ease back into this and only write two essays a month for a bit.
I hope that isn’t too much of a disappointment for you all, since I know you loooooove hearing from me every week. But I already know I’m going to be busy busy busy for the rest of the summer, and I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep.
My plan right now is to still write something on non-essay weeks, but I haven’t quite decided what that will be yet. Maybe a photo diary or an advice column or a book recommendation? I’m open to suggestions if there’s anything you want to read from me — just reply to this message or comment on this post on the Substack app.
In the meantime, enjoy some pics of things I saw and did and ate this summer :) Send me an update about your summer too! I wanna hear what you’re up to.
Welcome back! Glad you enjoyed your break. Love photo diairies!