Dearest one,
If you’ve been here a while, you know that I was on a half-year hiatus from writing this email. I had many intentions while taking this break, but the most important was to stop writing and start living again, something I’d forgotten my way around since the pandemic. Or maybe even a while before that.
As an anxious, restless, creatively inclined person, I've always had to busy myself with some pursuit or the other.
In my early twenties, I ran the local chapter of an NGO during the hours I wasn't working. Along with friends, I also hosted annual flashmobs, went clowning in a pediatric hospital, ran flea market stalls of upcycled goodies, briefly had an unprofitable paper crafts business, wrote too many letters to too many people, and interviewed hundreds of women about their stories.
Eventually, most of these episodes came to their natural end. When I turned 25, I confidently laid down any remaining side hustle to follow what I believed was my 'one true calling' — being a writer.
I had a plan — I'd deepen my knowledge and hone my craft, build an online readerbase, get to know other writers, and work up to publishing a book before I hit 30.
And so I read with strict targets and created with even stricter ones. I doubled down on my existing blog, wrote across platforms, and started pitching to publications. I wrote listicles, lyric essays, personal essays, and made zines. I still wrote too many letters to too many people because some things don't change. But hey, no matter what, I wrote, dedicating every spare moment to the craft as I promised myself I would.
It started out wonderful, I'd never been so aligned with anything in my life. But a few years in, particularly during the pandemic, I found myself getting lost in comparison, feeling defeated by the magnitude of all that I was not and would probably never be. I struggled to feel the same groundedness, direction, and certainty that I once did with the craft and the community.
Earlier this year, at the tail end of my twenties, I realized that for me, it wasn't enough to just write, no matter how much I loved it, how much of myself it revealed to me, how many times it saved me, or how brave it pushed me to be. On the contrary, writing had gradually become an armor to hide behind, a way to live without living.
And I missed living. I missed people. I missed seeing glowing faces, hearing silly stories, looking into endless eyes and just knowing things about them that there's no rational reason I'd know. I missed laughing with people and at them, crying next to them and over them. I missed feeling like a human in the context of other humans, feeling my heart beat against the warm thuds of other hearts.
But choosing people — to want more of them around, to be awed by strangers, to see the potential in them, to be vulnerable with them — now felt far removed from the intellectually focused, reclusive life I'd been leading. I had grown attached to the image of who I was/wanted to be and stepping out of my head and into ‘the feelings’ was too sincere, too sappy, borderline cringe!
It was also scary. I kept asking myself if this return to the world was backtracking to a self I let go of, and did heading back without yet being a published author mean that I had somehow failed my twenties?
I wasn't sure of any answers, but I knew it was time to try something very different. So I gave up my writing goals for living goals. I decided to lean into the cringe and go back to life as I used to know it for a while. Or at least, something like the life I used to know.
I stepped out more, started meeting friends. I went for community events where I'd have to speak to new people, and others where I could witness art in silence. To motivate myself, I got highlights and a manicure, started wearing jewelry and nail paint. I visited the dentist (a lot, for some reason!). I traveled, dated, and started therapy. I grieved the people who were no longer in my life and got better at letting those who were love me. I made a little more money and tried to celebrate every good soul I met.
The past six months have been challenging at times and rewarding at others. They were eye-opening and disheartening, filled with a million questions, some ugly regrets, and a handful of answers. And yes, as I was afraid, it has also felt like a 'going back' of sorts every now and then.
But I've learnt that if we choose to be here and keep living, the past is always going to find us, be with us. However, returning to a past self or some version of a former life does not have to demarcate failure. There’s a lot we can make of it.
We could return to old spaces with new intentions and create empowering experiences for ourselves.
We could plant fresh memories on well tilled soil, letting our love for long lost friends and lovers fertilize every new relation.
We could be accepting when the selves we thought we outgrew still seek from within us. Satiating their need for joy and validation would be honouring our own too.
We could permit our broken hopes and unfulfilled dreams to walk in stride with our new hopes and stupidly giddy sense of wonder. We could marvel at our infinite multitudes.
If we live with purpose, every return has the potential to be a homecoming – an arms wide open dash into a life that's held us, one we know exactly how to be embraced by.
And this much, I hope we always allow ourselves.
💌
Love,
Soumya
Reflection prompts ✍
~ Have you recently felt as though you were living some version of a past you had moved on from?
~ What is different/new in the scene this time?
~ If you could weild this new information as a weapon or a tool, how would you use it to reshape the scene?
My zine Nothing More Nothing Less is currently available at Bazinega, shipping across India. NMNL is a 12-page lighthearted workbook for anyone feeling stuck in any area of their lives.
Recommended reads 🤌🏼
Trying to escape the trap of digital productivity.
More and more people have lifestyle fatigue after the pandemic. Do you relate?
Making lemonade. An excellent, gut-wrenching personal essay on eating disorders in teenagers.
The cost of call-out culture.
How to be a valuable guest.
Art offering 🥰
Thank you for reading! 💞
If you enjoyed this newsletter, here’s how you can support me:
1. Like and leave a comment on this post on Substack.
2. Share it with a friend or on your social media.
3. Write back to me, I love reading and replying to your emails!
I found our hiatus from writing very similar. I took a break not to go living but to grieve, to mourn. I wasn't ready to feel the loss of a parent yet. However, here I am, almost a year later, writing. Thank you for sharing your descriptive essay.
This post reminded me of a quote by Thoreau: “How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.” Hope you found bits of what you were looking for. As for the rest, we have the rest of our lives ♥️