Breathing Life

Long Way Home's New Era

Okay. It’s time.

The last year and a half has been the most chaotic period of my life. I got married, my grandmother died, my wife’s grandmother died, I moved into (and out of) the city, I went on a honeymoon, I started working long hours in a new industry, I navigated new family dynamics, and the list goes on.

In the last month of relative calm, however, I’ve felt this existential antsiness. I think it’s always been there, but the water hasn’t been still enough to notice. It’s a restlessness born from creative deprivation. The last time I felt this way I started this newsletter. The subsequent months were one of the only times I’ve ever felt the gnawing subside.

Now, the internal itchiness has gotten unbearable and I need to pay attention.

Still, I feel anxious over what to do with this platform. I wonder whether it’s going to be worthwhile for readers and whether I’m capable of making something that will make me proud. Of course, my neuroses makes me obsess over everything that isn’t writing itself. A small sampling: What’s my niche? What’s my interesting, unique point of view? What am I okay to have associated with me until the end of time? Who’s my audience? What if I say something too offensive? What if I say something not offensive enough? What would a close friend think of what I post? What about a complete stranger?

Before I know it, it’s dinner time, the page is blank, and I’m more anxious than when I first sat down.

I know the worry is futile. I know deep down the only thing that matters is writing a bunch of bad things until I eventually make something less bad.

My point is this: I don’t know what I need this to be, but I know I need it to be. And so I’m breathing new life back into this while making no promises and setting no expectations. In the first era of Long Way Home🏡, I promised content about the South Asian experience, psychological well-being, and emotional intelligence. In this new era, who knows what I will need to write? Not me, that’s for sure. I will fill my feed with a bunch of bad, fragmented drafts (fiction??) until I stumble across what moves me.

I’m breathing life back into this project so it can somehow breathe life back into me.

Thanks for reading. See you next week.

Restlessly,
Vandan