This summer has been a whirlwind.
Not because we’ve jam-packed our schedule—we haven’t. Not because we’ve traveled a ton—we don’t, ever. Not because a bunch of things have gone wrong or happened unexpectedly—they haven’t. Yet this summer has just felt like… a lot. I needed to do some processing of it all, so I thought, why not do it here. I wanted to give you an update on One Tired Mother anyway. So here we go.
I launched this publication back in May, on Mother’s Day, because it felt right, and also when you have perfectionist tendencies, you need to just DO THE THING before you feel totally ready. (Your brain on perfectionism tells you you’re never quite ready, that you need to get better, learn more, observe more, whatever, and then what happens is that you literally never do the thing. IYKYK). I launched One Tired Mother with this post, reflecting on the holiday that is Mother’s Day and why I think I feel a sense of annoyance about it every single year, despite having tried to reframe and re-strategize a bunch of different times. I’m proud of this piece and there’s a lot there.
And then as summer began, I realized something: I don’t actually want to be on social media or really on my laptop at all. My oldest had just finished kindergarten, and I missed her so very much when she was gone M-F last year. I wanted to hang with my kids, just like the old days, when it was all of us at home every single day. And so I wasn’t on Instagram much or writing here much, either. And it was wonderful.
I started reading aloud to the girls and watching movies with them. We went to parks and to walk around on Main Street and to the pool. We worked on life skills while we hung around the house and spent face-to-face time with family and friends. I know it’s cool to hate on the “you only have 18 summers with your kids” thing, but, like, it’s true. Ideas like that don’t annoy me anymore—I see the wisdom being shared in the perspective of those who have gone before me. We’ve decided for now to send the girls to school, so I will enjoy the summers of all of us hanging out as much as I can. I will not take their little bodies and their little voices and their little thoughts for granted.
And so, it turns out that the “launch” of One Tired Mother was a little… underwhelming. Usually when you launch something you wanna start with a bang, some excitement, and maybe some things planned in advance to keep the momentum going. I had… none of that. But that’s okay. It’s kind of how I roll anyway, slow and steady. I did manage to get four more posts written for this publication. They were:
A little intro of myself, in case a reader doesn’t know me. I like to know the person behind the words, especially a writer of non-fiction, so I whipped up this little post. Read it here.
An ode to invisible work. There’s so much we’re all doing that absolutely takes time and energy, but that doesn’t have particularly immediate, tangible results, and/or doesn’t earn us money. And it’s this work that’s actually the foundation of a meaningful life. We need to honor and celebrate this work more. Read it here.
An argument for “re-branding” motherhood. I’ve personally found being a mother to be the opposite of almost everything our society wants to tell women it is. This essay calls out a narrative when it comes to how we think about motherhood culturally and it’s my personal favorite thing I’ve written here. Read it here.
A birthday reflection. My eldest and I have birthdays a day apart. In June, she turned 7 and I turned 40. It felt significant, and not just because of those specific numbers, but because of this specific moment: what the last seven years have meant to me and what’s to come. Read it here.
Feel very free to take a minute and read anything you missed! And if you read something already, know that it may be a bit different now: I have a writer quirk of publishing something and then going back to edit it a bit once it’s published. Why can’t I just let it sit and then edit it before I publish? Weeeell, that’s why it’s a quirk!
Now it’s almost the middle of August, and the girls are heading to first grade and kindergarten this week (!!!). And… I’m heading back to school, too! What?! Yep. Anyone who knows me probably knows how burned out of teaching I was when I left the profession. I even let my Minnesota teaching license expire, that’s how sure I was that I’d never go back to the classroom (I was also so frustrated with the ridiculous racket that is MN teacher licensing that not renewing my license felt like an appropriate middle finger for the system). However, something recently fell into my lap that’s absolutely perfect for me. It’s a .4 specialist position (2 days a week), and I’ll share more about it soon—in a whole post I have drafted about going back to paid work after a motherhood hiatus.
So what about One Tired Mother? I was so looking forward to concentrating on my writing this fall. However, I actually have a feeling that working outside the home part-time will be even better for my creative life. It will add structure to my week. I have a sneaking suspicion my mental health will improve. We’ll have a bit of extra cashflow to hire childcare here and there. Yes, I’ll be a bit busier than I would have been just having Rosie M-F, but you know what they say… “if you want something done, give it to a busy person”!
With that said, plan to see me here regularly this fall! I’m committing to a post a week at minimum. And… drumroll… on September first, I’m turning on *paid* subscriptions! To those sweet souls who have already pledged a paid subscription, I can’t tell you how much that’s meant to me. Each time I saw this notification—“One of your readers, (email address), believes your writing is worth paying for. They have pledged a subscription.”—my heart about burst with gratitude and my desire to keep speaking, to keep writing, was strengthened a thousand-fold. That you believe in my voice, my ideas… any creative can tell you support like that is invaluable.
More info on being a paid subscriber to come. However, please don’t feel pressure to take that step. I’ll always write things that are available for all, and I won’t love you any less if you choose not to support me in that way. I’m simply looking to cultivate an intentional community here—and make my writing life more sustainable. On a more macro level, I love that Substack has created a space where writers are free to speak what’s true for them and are paid directly for their work by those who find value in it. (Here’s a great article they recently wrote about their vision for this platform. So inspiring.)
Hey, think that’s all I have to say for now! I hope you’ve had a great summer and are feeling ready for the shift into fall. Talk to you (very) soon!
P.S. Regarding the box you see below: this is the whole written post, but the audio version (where I read the post out loud) is only accessible to paid subscribers. Subscribe to One Tired Mother at $5/month to get not only post audios but also podcast rants that are too spicy or vulnerable for all the Internet to hear.