219 published pieces.

140 straight weeks of publishing.

Countless hours spent writing and rewriting.

And now I’m taking a break.

Writing has felt like a slog for the last eight weeks. I’ve shown up and pushed through. Grinded out drafts. Published anyway. There’s a time for that, for forging ahead despite challenge.

But now it’s time to step back and reflect.

The end of summer is near and I’m in the middle of a job hunt. After applying to jobs every day for eleven weeks and hearing nothing back, I’m finally starting to get some interviews. There’s a chance that none of them pan out and I’m back to applying. But I want to throw myself fully at this career search until I land something.

I also want to spend less time digitally engaged.

Writing on my laptop isn’t the same as scrolling Instagram or binging Netflix, but it’s still screen time. Writing is a valuable practice, one that will always be part of my life, but it strips away time I could spend living in the real world.

After writing almost every day for nearly 1,000 days, I think there’s value in taking a break. When I return to writing, I know it will be for the right reasons and with the right intentions, not because of a stubbornness to keep my streak going or out of fear my subscriber count could drop. Letting myself take a break from the grind of publishing every week will also relieve some pressure. It will let me write for the joy of it, not to meet another weekly deadline.

I don’t know when I’ll publish again. Maybe in a week. Maybe in a month. And I don’t know what cadence I’ll adopt. Maybe I’ll publish something next week then not again for another month.

But I still have lots of ideas to share and I hope you’ll be here to read them when I do.

With all my love,

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The last few weeks:

The last few weeks in Toronto

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