If I can pull the curtain back a bit, I’m always scared when I begin to write these pieces. While I’m so consistently surprised by the positivity with which they are received, that positivity does weigh on me. It’s a feeling akin to imposter syndrome. Not that I don’t think I deserve praise; rather, it’s this fear that I will not be able to, in the words of Hunter S. Thompson, meet the high watermark that was set for me by… me. A fear that I will not be able to recreate the same magic or catch lightning in a bottle like I once did. Maybe it does go back to imposter syndrome, though, because the end of my fear finds me being exposed as… something. A bad writer? A hack? Or perhaps what I’m more afraid of is the reality of my talent looking different than this collective imago that’s been created around my writing. Simply, I’m scared that I’m not as good as myself and others think. It’s a fear I contend with a lot as I write. Perhaps it comes from my background in theater. “You’re only as good as your last performance.”
In that last performance, the last one that was published, anyway, I wrote about momentum. I envisioned myself as a rock whose motion had been interrupted by moss or a dead Sisyphus or whatever I used as a metaphor for my fifty-to-sixty hour work weeks. Naively, I thought that piece would be enough to bring me back. To get me rolling again. However, the external forces acting on the momentum of my creativity proved to be too much.
As I discussed in my previous piece, I was exhausted. On camp days, my alarm would go off at five-thirty in the morning, leaving me just enough time to feed myself, wash myself, journal, and make my commute along roads that were perpetually under construction. By the time camp ended at three-thirty, I was already tired. Most days, though, I would try to play through it, going directly to the library after my job to do more work. This proved effective for a time. However, as hard as I tried, I couldn’t outrun the burnout. While liberating myself from my Monday, 8 AM deadline certainly helped, I just got to a point where it all felt uninspiring. I had all these great ideas for pieces, but I didn’t have the time to give them the research and attention they required. Additionally, while they tend to garner good responses, my reflective, introspective pieces are taxing in a different way. I especially struggle writing them in those moments when I’m unhappy with my life. This struggle usually comes from my view that unhappiness, while certainly impacted by external factors and circumstances, ultimately exists as a reflection of my own decisions. In these moments, I rarely want to get closer to my life in the way that personal essays require. In fact, when I’m feeling this way, I usually want to get as far away from my life as possible1.
It was at this point I began to toy with the idea of taking a break. I’ve been very break-averse when it comes to my creative projects. In fact, before it took its own hiatus in mid-July, my podcast, Manic Pixie Jumpscare, had posted an episode for fifty-nine weeks in a row. There were, of course, times in those fifty-nine weeks wherein I wanted to take a break, thus relinquishing the responsibility of uploading. But, I did it anyway. I had a similar attitude towards this newsletter. Before my break, I published a piece each week for fourteen calendar weeks straight.
This project’s consistency is important for a couple reasons. Firstly, coming from theater, I seldom get the opportunity to work on a project for this amount of time. Theater, as an art form, proves quite ephemeral. When I’ve acted in productions, I’ve had anywhere from six weeks to five months to rehearse. In those times when I’ve been on the production or creative side, I’ve gotten some more time. However, all productions culminate in a couple performances before the company disperses. In the best case, the art made and the relationships formed continue to exist in a different form. In a less ideal case, they disappear without a trace. It’s one of the unique blessings and cruelties of theater as an art form. This newsletter existing on a more prolonged timeline allows me to do something different. It offers an opportunity for me to build a rapport with you, dear reader. A shared vocabulary, a (hopefully) mutual curiosity, and an understanding of and a love for each other. With these new opportunities, though, come new challenges. Unlike a production, there’s no defined end to this project. With that in mind, how do I negotiate time away from this long term commitment I’ve invented? How do I, at an even more basic level, continue to create ideas? These are questions I didn’t know I would have to answer until now.
My determination to put something out each week also comes from my want to build an audience. It is my thought that consistency aids me in building trust. If my readers can trust that I can deliver a solid piece of writing to their inbox each Monday at 8 AM, then they may be willing to trust me with other things, like their money. As much as I hate it, that is definitely a part of the drive for consistency. While I am extremely passionate about this newsletter, it is work. It is laborious. And it’s a labor for which, one day, I would like to be compensated. As a creative, I have been taught to accept that I will labor for free until such a time where I prove myself or my work meritorious of financial compensation. I’ve been told that, if I want to be compensated for my art, I have to hustle. I have to suffer through working a bunch of jobs I’m not ultimately that passionate about to make money while doing my art on the side. Then, one day, perhaps the side hustle will become the main hustle. Working so much for others this summer made me even more sure that this, unfair as it may be, is the course I want my life to take. Therefore, taking a break, thus delaying that time in which I am able to earn money from my art, felt like an affront to that livelihood I, one day, would like to build for myself.
With the hopes of building that livelihood, consistency was my north star. However, as my anxiety to publish a piece mounted, I couldn’t help but wonder: what’s the point of being consistent with my work if that work consistently exhausts me? I also wondered at what point my exhaustion would evolve into something like burnout, resentment, or dispassion. It became evident that, considering my circumstances, my schedule was unsustainable. So, I did something new: I took a break.
As much as I hate to admit it, I did enjoy my time away. I still felt exhausted from my work schedule but it certainly helped not having this responsibility to contend with all the time. Unfortunately, there did still exist a part of me that remained disappointed in myself for taking a break. On Mondays, when there was no new piece published, there was always that little voice taunting me, reminding me of my shortcomings.
Something that helped me deal with that voice, though, is acknowledging that I conceived of this schedule when I was unemployed. As I talked about in my last piece, I had all the time in the world to write. At that time, if it was Friday and I was only halfway through a draft for a piece being published on Monday, then it was most likely my fault. Contrast that version of my life with the one that existed a few months later; a life in which bosses, customers, and students all had different expectations of me. All these new forces had been introduced, and each of them demanded that I use my time in a different way. It is okay that I, for a multitude of reasons, began to give in to those forces. I had to realize that my life had changed, and it was okay for certain aspects of that life to change with it. In fact, I learned that, sometimes, it is absolutely necessary.
It also helped to remind myself that I’m so much more than what I produce. I find that, in certain moments, I describe myself using these singular categories: “writer,” “son,” “friend.” However, the sum of myself is so much greater than any of those constituent parts. In other words, I’m a lot more than any of those singular categories can truly describe. When I describe myself with the singular category “writer,” then I can fall into this trap wherein I begin to devalue myself for not being able to write. Then, these devaluations and judgments I place on myself begin to affect how I show up in other areas of my life. In other words, in a similar way to realizing that my life had changed, I had to understand that, in order to be a functional educator for my students, a grateful son to my parents, and a present friend to my own friends, I had to let the part of me that wants to be a writer take a backseat for a second. A mentor of mine, Bria Walker, once said, “you can have it all, you just might not be able to have it all at one time.” I can be a writer, I’ve shown that; I just couldn’t do it while negotiating all of those other responsibilities, and that’s okay! I anchored myself in the knowledge that I would one day more fully inhabit that part of myself that is a writer. It’s a valuable lesson.
All this to say, despite my initial aversion, my hiatus ended up being beneficial. And, self-indulgent as it felt at times, I wanted to write this piece as a testament to those benefits. I also felt like I owed you, dear reader, a bit of an explanation as to where I’ve been. Now, I’m feeling reconnected, and I’m ready to show up more fully for this project. Hopefully, moving forward, it can also serve as a reminder to cut myself some slack. To end, I leave you with a quote from Miley Cyrus’ live album, ATTENTION: MILEY LIVE:
“I just wanted to be honest… I’m just finding my feet… I’m just as scared as everyone else… but the good news is we’re not alone.”
Luckily, I was only made to feel this way for a couple weeks as opposed to a couple months, or years, or decades.