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not a full on pit of despair, but for sure a small roadside ditch of writing despair

Y’all the time I took off work and time I spent being in charge of my children for July 4th, immediately followed by a week of solo parenting took it out of me. I was only solo parenting one of my kids too, as the other was off at grandma’s house but STILL damn I was and continue to be tired. It felt like too much to open this editor or the notebook I use to write shit down and even say just that - that I’m tired and have nothing to say.

So, guess what: I’m tired! I DO however, have things to say, and 2 weeks in a row of not posting has me quickly falling into that old pit of “oh well, haven’t posted, missed the routine, lost the schedule, it’s all over, might as well quit.”

My inside voice is a real treat, ain’t she!

I still don’t feel like I have the words quite back, at least in the right order to put out a “normal” snarky memoir. But the habit of writing is why I started this, and the habit of writing doesn’t develop if you don’t sit down and write some shit down. And since this isn’t meant to be a place for extremely polished work only, I’m showing up for myself and putting this out there: something that truly will just be words on a page, words that aren’t in a great order, words that aren’t my best, words that are potentially a waste of time, words that are undoubtedly going to be disappointing to me. But MORE disappointing would be if I neglected to publish something for a 3rd week in a row. 2 weeks is manageable, barely, three weeks makes it bigger and scarier.

me, last week, on a day trip to the beach I planned for myself because of the burnout and the rest and the soul refueling needs. my current self loved and needed it, my future forehead wrinkles did not.

SO, HI.

Until I find whatever it is in my head that allows me to put words on a page that I actually enjoy and find value in and perhaps think other people will find value in as well¹, here are some thought provoking things from the past week:

1. This essay from a Substack I really enjoy, Ask Polly. All about encouraging friends and finding your own way via lifting up the people around you. Spoke to me today, as I am struggling to lift myself up of late yet finding no issue in cheering for others.

2. Speaking of this, I posted on instagram about how delighted I am to be friends with someone I got to go to dinner w/ last week, and it made me think of how we don’t share our love for our friends - directly to them - as much as they deserve. I want to do this more often but it’s so hard to get vulnerable in this way! This would be a great essay topic, if I could bring myself to write it.

3. Another Substack essay, this one very short and very apropos: Running out of ideas, by Mar of Monday Monday. I read this as soon as she posted it, while I was waiting for my kid at swim lessons and holy moly I might have cried, it was so on my exact level at that exact moment, were it not for the half dozen toddlers in crisis all around me.

I want to promise to be back on Friday with cool/dumb shit, but I haven’t been buying much other than endless ANANANANA aka bananas and BRAAAA aka bread for my 16 month old who does scream those words at the top of his lungs about every 87 seconds throughout the day. The only thing he says softly is “bye-bye” which is adorable, *and* I’m also desperate for the age where he learns volume modulation because damn my ears.

So I guess, no promises on Friday. I WILL be back next Tuesday though, because a promise is a promise, and time off is for slackers! Haha. JK. Time off is for people who value rest and don’t want to burn out, which is me! And also, the promise I made to myself to publish this every week is important to me, so yeah, I’ll be back next week for another snarky memoir about how kids are the worst and make me almost too tired to write about it.

kbyeeeeeeee

1. You can tell I’m struggling because of this garbage sentence that I am absolutely not going to take the time to edit, sorry not sorry.