Pause ⏸️

I don't know if I burned out. I hesitate to use the phrase in earnest. I know my heart is a little bit broken and has been for a while.

I feel like a stuttering engine that coughs and splutters into action each day. Once it gets going, most people wouldn’t notice. The car is all clean and tidy, it gets from A to B just fine. but under the bonnet is a different story.

I’ve hidden. As best I could. Pretended. Kept going. Kept swimming.

The only people who’ve see the faltering are those who are closest. Who I can’t hide from. Because the brokenness escapes sometimes. Like bones through an open fracture.

But slowly, I’ve been grinding to a halt. The tears wont stay on the inside.

And now I’m here. Not swimming.

I worry that sharing this isn’t the best idea. That tomorrow, I’ll feel OK, and regret it.

I know the other me, the one who’s resilient and strong, pragmatic and rational will roll her eyes at this melodrama. Of course you’re OK, she’ll say. Of course you can keep going. You’re just having a bad day and you will feel better tomorrow. Of course you can carry on juggling it all. It’s not all that much anyway. Other people manage it without falling apart.

And what’s the alternative? Give up? Let everyone down? Let yourself down?

Fail?

But if I spend more days trying to fight back the tears, unable to pretend my heart didn’t break¹, maybe the days that feel like today are the real ones, and the ones where I’m rational and have my shit together are the pretense.

Maybe I need to let myself fall apart a little bit.

So I’m pausing. I don’t know for how long. It could be as little as a few weeks. It might be longer.

I’m pausing my letters on

While I Was Drawing

and

Counting Beans

. I won’t be taking art or illustration commissions for a while. I have put many other plans on hold too. I’m unsubscribing from all but a few of my favourite newsletters.

The only thing that I am not pausing, are the illustrations for the Children’s Christmas book for my beautiful friend,

Lydia Saward

.

I am scared that I’ll get left behind. I know things will move on without me. I know there will be perfect opportunities missed and ideas that will give up on me and move on to others. I am sad to think of those. I really hop you’ll stick around for when I un-pause.

Bye for now,

1. I haven’t told the story here although some of it has seeped out in previous letters. Perhaps when I un-pause I will share it properly.