Gimme a Break

What’s the thing that you are most passionate about? What motivates you to get up in the morning, to stay up late, to keep going even when you’re totally spent? Maybe it’s your family, your kids, your job, your sport. The thing that drives you can be liberating, motivating, comforting… and exhausting. Especially if the thing that drives you is not just a thing, but many things.

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Here are my things: Fiction writing, this blog, and half marathon walking. Each of those things takes up an enormous amount of time. And on top of the physical component (yeah, writing can be very physical), there’s the emotional and mental effort of each thing to consider. It’s pretty hard to focus on all three of these things at once.

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All of which is to say: I need a break. Not only that, I also need to refocus. I’ve spent the better part of the last two years focusing mostly on this blog. I think about it all the time – what to write, how to say what I want to say, the things I want to talk to you about. Every single day something happens – I read something, see something, hear something, think of something – that relates to BFD. I could post multiple times a day, if I had the time.

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Which is great. But it also means that my fiction writing has seriously fallen by the wayside. I’ve been writing stories since I was eight years old. It’s my first and truest and deepest passion. And I miss it. So I’m going to go write some fiction for while. Thanks to my awesome friend Jen, I found out about a contest to get a middle grade novel looked at by a literary agent (http://tinyurl.com/pwbds3q), so that’s super exciting!

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I won’t forget about BFD. In fact, I’m sure I’ll be compiling a list of topics to write about while I’m working on my novels. Most of us have spent our entire lives believing certain (mostly negative) thing about the human body – especially our own. And I every much want to be a part of changing that, of making the world a happier, healthier, and safer place for each of us to live in.

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And, honestly? I’m kind of burned out. It takes a lot out of me to think and talk and write about this stuff every day. Don’t get me wrong, I believe utterly in what I’m doing here… but it’s hard to put so much into something and sometimes feel like you’re not getting much out of it. Some of you have told me that BFD has made a difference to you, and that means so much to me. But it’s hard to feel like I want to do more, be more, reach more people, and not have that happen.

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I also struggle personally with stuff about my body, which sometimes makes me feel like a hypocrite when I’m talking to y’all about accepting and embracing and loving your bodies. Of course it’s a journey, and I will always be on the road. I don’t think there’s an end, a magical moment where I wake up and suddenly love my body completely. But I’ve realized that it’s important to sometimes pull off the road and take a break.

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I hope you’ll miss BFD while it’s on hiatus. I hope you’ll keep sending me links and telling me stories. And I hope that, when I’m ready to come back, you’ll be waiting. BFD wouldn’t be possible without y’all – it would just be me, talking to wall. We’re in this together. I just need to take a little break, and then we’ll be back at it! Thanks for your support, your patience, and your understanding.

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