hiatus
I do not know how to start this one so I will just say it. I am tired. Not the kind of tired that sleep fixes. The kind of tired that sits in your bones and watches you from across the room like a patient predator.
The challenge was fun. I am not going to pretend it was not. Thirty something days of writing and publishing and fixing and tweaking. Watching the post count climb from 100 to 180 and change. Every day another post. Every day another chance to pull something from the vault and dust it off and send it out into the world.
(that was the whole point really. The vault is full of half finished things. The challenge forced me to finish them).
And I did. I got the archive out. All those posts that were sitting on my machine, gathering digital dust, they are public now. They exist somewhere outside my hard drive. That alone makes the whole thing worth it. But I also got to write new stuff. The African Philosophy series. The field notes. The essays that came from nowhere at 2 AM. I even got to host other people’s writing, which was a privilege I did not know I needed. (got some more sitting in the vault to be released some day)
I also got to look at the blog properly for the first time. Really look at it as a thing that exists in the world, not just a folder on my computer. I saw the things that needed to change. The broken links. The styling that did not work. The layout decisions that made me cringe. I got to bend it to my will a little bit and that felt good.
But Rag’n’Bone Man said it best. I am only human after all. And humans burn out.
(the song is not even that deep. But sometimes hits exactly right and you have to admit it).
The burnout crept up slow. It did not announce itself. One day I was excited to write. The next day I was staring at a blank screen feeling nothing. The words are still there. The vault is not empty. I could keep publishing. Just throw up the collected posts one by one and let the momentum carry me. But that feels wrong. I do not want to sit back and publish without the excitement. Without the act of writing or reviewing or rewriting. That would turn the blog into a chore and I refuse to let this place become a chore.
(this is the only space I have that is entirely mine. I will not kill it with obligation).
Work is work. Life is life. Both of them have been demanding attention lately and I can only spread myself so thin before I tear.
I do not know why I am writing this. Maybe because I owe an explanation. Maybe because the act of saying it out loud makes it real. Maybe because I have been talking to an empty room for years and the idea of disappearing without a word feels wrong.
For anyone reading this who has been here up until now. Thank you. Seriously. I do not know who you are or how you found this place but you were here and that means something.
Get a job. Or do not. I am not your father.
(will be back after a week, a month, a year. I guess we will never know).
(will try coming back once in a while for the monthly digests) (maybe…)