Hello all! This week I’m sending everyone a copy of the note I sent last week to paid subscribers. I’ll actually still be here twice a month, but I’m taking a break from new writing and will spend the summer sharing interviews with other authors. I’m so excited to bring more voices into this space and to come back creatively refreshed in a couple months. Happy summer, y’all!
Dear, delightful paid subscribers,
As of today, paid subscriptions to Creaturely are paused. This is not an emergency! This is not an ending. I’m taking a couple of months off, and I’ll be back, and your subscription will automatically resume. There will also be some interviews popping up during this time, free for everyone.
I know most people who subscribe to Substacks do so primarily to support the writer, and secondarily (if at all) to receive benefits. But it works better for me to go ahead and hit pause.
This decision has been an exercise in the rhythms and patterns that make something sustainable. When we think of “resisting burnout,” a lot of us think of The Big Quit: suddenly and dramatically quitting a job, a long-beloved organization, or an identity, or drastically clearing our calendars and saying “no” to everything indefinitely. I have done a lot of Big Quits in my life; I wrote a whole book about the one forced upon me by chronic illness.
There are a lot of little things that quietly tempt us toward burnout-inducing patterns, and I actually think the cathartic nature of the Big Quit can be one of them. In the culture of extractive capitalism, a Big Quit declares:
I have done my best! (I have allowed every drop of my energy and perhaps a big dose of my humanity to be drained out of my life.)
I am taking drastic action! (I must maintain the illusion of control. I believe that “moving forward” requires huge, costly gestures.)
I’ve earned a vacation! (My utter depletion proves that I’ve made myself worthy of rest.)
But as necessary as a Big Quit may sometimes be, what we really need to learn to celebrate is a periodic rest. What if you got just as many “You go, girls!” from honoring your weekly Sabbath as you would from rage-quitting your job? Periodic rest involves a lot less bridge-burning. It can be a place of peace, where a Big Quit often involves turmoil and risk. And—this could be the most important part!—we get to actually enjoy it rather than merely catch up from being totally fried.
I’ve been tired for a little while here on Substack. While I took a maternity leave, I’d worked ahead so that scheduled posts kept appearing during those months, along with a few new essays I found time for in the newborn phase. When I came back to writing here every week, it felt energizing and expansive to return to this vocation alongside that of motherhood.
But this weekly schedule simply feels very different in the constrained chunks of time I have now. Of course, maternity leave is also not “rest” no matter what industry you are in (or how long you are able to take).
It’s OK to work tired. Resisting burnout doesn’t mean we never, ever feel low on energy. We need rituals and rhythms that allow us to keep going when we’re a little tired, just like we need them for other seasons and situations. I’ve been keeping going on purpose—because this work matters to me, because I want to be dependable for myself and for you—but also precisely so I could pay attention to what it feels like to keep showing up here, to what I need when I feel this way.
I learned that it’s really draining to me to perseverate on “what I’m going to write about” while I’m doing other things, rather than to keep notes when ideas pop up or to simply trust that when I sit down to write, something will be stirred.
I learned that I need more deliberate practices of prayer and connection with God—something I’m still making my way toward.
I learned that I feel joyful, grateful, and accomplished when I can make good work even under a little duress. It makes me feel more grateful to be here, not less, when that happens. Good tired.
I also know that writing requires me to leave plenty of fallow ground. I’m not here to become a perpetual motion machine for dumping words into your inbox; I want to show up with something joyful, surprising, accompanying, helpful, gracious, beautiful, or fun. Writing that deeply connects like this draws from the body, the spirit, from community, from margin, space, and rest. Too many words get in the way of those things.
In other words, I usually take a month or two off from writing every winter and every summer. In the future, I hope I’ll work ahead so Creaturely can carry on without me during those times. I think there’s a way to organize this publication so that that feels good; I just need a little space to be able to find that way. For now, the time has come to heed my sense of weariness, even unprepared.
Frankly, I’d hoped to figure out how to have more lined up by the time I stepped away this time, but in the end I haven’t. In the past this would’ve felt like a failure. Now I just see it as an iteration. One of the best things about shifting my perspective from eternal improvement or “growth” to sustainability is that it’s changed my relationship to failure. If something isn’t working, the worst thing we can do is harbor shame about it; making change requires honesty and courage, not hiding and fear. This is also, of course, something that’s changed about my relationship with God. I no longer believe God needs me to do Great Things or is disappointed with me if I don’t. All of this life is simply a gift.
Besides! By the time I return, things will be different. My baby will be almost one (!). He might be in part-time daycare. He’ll definitely be spending more time with his grandparents, who are moving to town in a few weeks!
I’m getting one or two new freelance projects underway,1 along with some speaking and/or facilitation work possibly on the horizon.
Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, and however many changes you’re navigating (because we’re all forever navigating change), may the right rhythms find you and the joy of the Lord sustain you.
peace, love, bread, and wine,
Lyndsey
P.S. As always, a great way to continue to support me is to buy, recommend, or REVIEW My Body and Other Crumbling Empires. And as always, thank you ever so much for subscribing to Creaturely!
did you know I’m a ghostwriter?