Notes From a Year of Not Performing

A year ago I deleted the app where I had spent eleven years building a version of myself that other people liked.

I expected to feel free. Mostly I felt unemployed. I had not realized how much of my inner life had quietly reorganized itself around being seen by strangers.

Three things I did not expect

The first is that I got worse at writing before I got better. Without the small hit of approval, I lost the engine I had been running on and had to find a different one.

The second is that my friendships got heavier, in a good way. When you stop broadcasting, the people who want to know how you are have to ask, and you have to actually answer.

The third is that I started finishing things. Not many. But the ones I finished were mine.