The Mystery of the Missing Month

Hi there,

I owe you a post. Actually, I owe you several.

I have no idea what even happened to June. If this was a Nancy Drew book, it would be the Mystery of the Missing Month. Because I barely remember any of it.

And not in a good, productive, I-was-writing-furiously-in-a-beautiful-tower-with-my-quill-pen kind of way. In a I-moved-apartments-and-kept-my-clients-afloat-and-barely-kept-myself-afloat kind of way.

Let me paint you a picture.

I moved just down the street — same beach, same beloved little corner of the world, new apartment with a view that genuinely stops me in my tracks every morning. So the ending is good. Really good, actually. But the getting there?

Twelve hours. The move took twelve hours. And that was just one day. There was the before day, when I went to the new place and brought a few things. There was the after day, where I was still bringing the last few things and cleaning my old place.

And in the weeks leading up to it — the packing, the planning, the logistics of dismantling and reassembling your entire life while pretending to the rest of the world that everything is normal — I made a decision I make too often. I let the creative work wait.

Because the client work couldn’t. Deadlines don’t care that you’re surrounded by boxes. Projects don’t pause because you’re trying to figure out which bag has your phone charger and which one has your coffee maker and why TF you own this many books. So I kept the paid work afloat. I managed the move. I answered the emails and met the deadlines and showed up for everyone who needed me to show up.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that, the writing stopped.

The creative work that usually anchors me — the thing that is, if I’m honest, the most essential thing — got pushed to the bottom of the list where it sat, patient and a little reproachful, waiting for me to have bandwidth I didn’t have.

I want to be honest about what that felt like. Because I think it matters.

It ate into my joy.

Not dramatically. Not a crisis. Just a slow, low hum of something missing. That feeling I get when the writing isn’t happening and the days are full of everything except the thing that actually feeds me. I kept pooh-poohing it — that critical voice telling me to suck it up, that real life was calling, that of course I had to answer.

But here’s the thing: this is real life. The writing is real life. It’s not the extra thing, the indulgent thing, the thing you get to do when everything else is handled. It’s the thing that makes everything else bearable.

I lost track of that in June. And I felt the loss of it in ways I’m still unpacking, along with the actual boxes.

But I’m starting to feel like myself again.

The new apartment has a library downstairs — quiet, peaceful, exactly the kind of space that makes you want to open a notebook and stay a while. I’ve been going there most mornings.

When I’m not there, I’m on my balcony. I haven’t tried the heated pool yet, but I did jump into the (freezing cold) ocean the other day.

And I’m back here. Writing to you. Which is its own kind of coming home.

I’ve missed this. I’ve missed you. And I have a lot to tell you — about the new book I’m brainstorming, about what I’ve been reading, about the book fair happening in my building in two weeks (!!!).

June is over. The boxes are getting unpacked, albeit slowly. The muse has been notified that we’re back in business.

She seemed relieved. Honestly, so am I.