As it should be clear by now, TOA ended up on a little summer break. It wasn't planned at all, as evidenced by the chaotic mess of my "drafts" folder, which has a resemblance to how your office (remember those?) might have looked as you strolled back inside after a hasty response to a fire alarm. Once I stopped, though, I realized I was on the right track, so I decided to step away from the virtual pen until I felt it was the right time for my return. You could say that the past month was the equivalent of laying down for a quick nap, then waking up the next morning with no regrets.
My writing was not the only thing to take a backseat over the summer vacation. I stopped running for two full weeks (a break at this time of the year is literally unprecedented for me), and I also failed to take a single note from my reading. The extra time in August went toward an apartment search, getting up to speed with new job responsibilities, and a couple of richly rewarding social outings, including my first trip out of state since March 2020 to visit some loyal readers in NYC. My time in September has mostly gone toward getting acclimated to a new apartment (send me your recommendations for pointless household purchases!). I can see from my calendar that there isn't much remaining on the immediate horizon, so I think it's about the right time to get back into writing.
As most people tend to report after taking some kind of break, I think the time off was a great idea. However, I also know that breaks are not a universal cure - my breaks from running, for example, have never seemed to do any good (which appears to be the case regarding this most recent running break, as well). The logic of taking a break extends only to the point where it's the equivalent of having a night of sleep, or possibly enjoying the weekend after a stressful work week, but in terms of returning to the task I think it's important to consider the necessary adjustments to prevent getting worn out in the first place. I think to that point, the way I approach TOA in the future is going to look a little different from how it's happened in the past, with the immediate change being greater variation in terms of both length and frequency of posts. If I had to make a specific guess about how this will look, I think it would resemble the approach taken by the More Or Less podcast, which releases episodes on two overlapping schedules - a weekly ten-minute episode, released throughout the year, alongside weekly half-hour episodes during "seasons" that run for a month or two before going on break. In TOA terms, that might mean a consistent short post or two per week throughout the year alongside occasional periods of longer and/or more frequent posts.
We should be back and running with the first version of this new schedule sometime in September. I don't want to make any false promises, so let's say we'll reopen on one of the next two Sundays with a classic "Proper Admin" to get us caught up on the past few weeks.
Thanks for (not) reading! See you soon.
