My dear climbers,
August is here already. Where did the summer go? It’s been a big giant bummer of one here in NYC, one hot, sticky, swampy mess (and I’m not just talking about the current Administration).
It’s been a hell of a year so far. I know you’re tired, because I am tired. We are ALL SO TIRED.
When I am tired, Dopamine Rat likes to join the party.
Dopamine Rat wants his jollies, and he’s gonna get them one way or another. And yes, as I’ve mentioned, I picture Dopamine Rat as Templeton from Charlotte’s Web. When I watched that movie when I was little (about 8 billion times), I wanted my own version of his binge at the fair. I did not want to eat garbage, but I did want unlimited cotton candy and caramel apples and ice cream and funnel cake and AND AND AND.
But because I am almost 44 and can’t be out here in these streets binge eating carnival food, I have instead been binging the Notes section of Substack. After two years of (mostly) using it to connect with folks and promote the writings on this here newsletter, I have found myself laying in bed using it for doomscrolling.
HAVE I LEARNED NOTHING????!?!?
Ugh.
Worse, I have started to pop off a bit on the ol’ Notes more often than I feel comfortable with. Now, I have gotten the memo that people enjoy when I pop off. I do too, sometimes! But I don’t want to waste all of my good shit posting on Notes. I do not want to add to the noise. The stress. The fear. We have enough of that. I strive to be saucy and relatable, but I don’t want to be an angry woman yelling into her phone either. I’d rather be an angry woman who is getting more sleep and reading more books.
The important thing about this ADHD journey is that I notice things now and do my best to amend the behavior, instead of wallowing in shame and wondering why the hell I can’t do anything right ever. I have noticed that when old habits come creeping back, that means that I am not making sure that Dopamine Rat gets his dopamine from things in real life. You know, like going outside or something. Stuff like that.
To be fair, I’ve been dealing with some health nonsense. Don’t worry, it is nothing fatal or even life threatening, just the joys of having a chronic autoimmune disorder and ADHD! I have been feeling pretty shitty on and off for a few months, and I am trying a new approach to my treatment that I am sure I will start blabbing about shortly. Because if there is anything you know about me by now, I am incapable of shutting my trap for any length of time!
Doomscrolling only brings pain in the end. We all know that it does. There is no amount of Additional Information that is somehow going to make the shit sandwich we are forced to eat taste any better. And now that we have people blatantly plagiarizing on this platform, not to mention finding out that nearly HALF of people on Substack are using AI to create their newsletters, suffice to say that EVERYTHING IS STILL TERRIBLE.
There is no excuse for copying and pasting someone’s exact words and claiming them as your own. Back in my day (the olden times of the early aughts), you could literally get kicked out of college for doing that. You can miss me with the excuses. Learn how to write and then come back to me. I am not interested in why. 1
And so, I have decided that I am taking a break from publishing for the rest of August2. I don’t really have much else to say anyway, at least not right this second. I have a lot of ideas for essays, but they’re all a giant jumble in my head. I need to take a breather and clear the cobwebs. And, frankly, we all get too much god damn email as it is.
I am also going to take the Notes app off of my phone. I have made a deal with myself that I can use it only on a web browser for the rest of the month, like an Old.
There are, however, things cooking behind the scenes here at The Long Climb.
I am working with a most fabulous person to do a little clean up and styling of my Substack. All will be revealed in good time, but I’m using some of this break to take a look under the hood and see what can be updated and made better. Graphic design and web layout in general is not my strongest suit, so I did a thing I never do — I asked for help and invested some money in my damn self.
So….stay tuned!
But for now…
If you’re struggling, exhausted, and your health is suffering — imagine I’m your favorite Auntie. I want us to sit down at a cafe, have a coffee or a nice glass of wine, and I will take both of your hands and give you permission to take a break for the rest of August.
Europeans have the right idea about August. It’s called “NOPE”.
Have you ever emailed anyone European in July, at least for work stuff? They’re all “SEE YOU IN SEPTEMBER!” That’s why they have nice things like universal healthcare and we are all trying to figure out if our Health Secretary is going to put us in a camp. We do not know how to relax in this country, and it creates a lot of problems.
Please tell me in the comments how you are planning to take care of yourself for the rest of this month. Can be big, small, or anywhere in between! Vacations? Plans? Dissociation Station? It’s all good, as long as you give yourself a big hug from me.
xo
KBQ
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There’s no good reason to do it. If you don’t enjoy the process of writing, or hell, even learning how to do it - — maybe don’t be a fucking writer. Lord knows there are enough of us.
If you see an email from me in two weeks, well, I had something to say! I am not holding myself to this, just giving myself permission to do so.
As someone that does a bunch of (ok, three) different things professionally, my stock answer to the recurring, "How do you do it?!" is one simple word: BREAKS. I swear by them. I take them, liberally. The fallow period is as important as the harvest.
Yes I’ve fallen back into the doom scrolling, I was at the beach 2 weeks ago and doing so much better and as soon as I got back to my regular work life and prepping for back to school, my nervous system got dysregulated again. I’m trying to take a break because I’m so clearly burned out but there’s a minimal level of work I have to get done for settling my personal injury cases. But I’m trying to brush off clients being cranky because they have appreciated what I’m doing for them anyway!