How Do You Measure a Year?

525,600 minutes on Substack.

Yours truly in Portugal last year.

After forty some years on this earth, you’d think I wouldn’t still be surprised by how drastically your view can change in a year. One year ago today, I flipped the switch on this corner of Substack, and I’m a bit breathless at the change in scenery since then.

Looking over the 12 months between that day and today, I realize there are parts of my life that didn’t survive the calendar year.

I turned to writing in the midst of a dark chapter thanks to challenges at work. It was a chapter that caught me mostly by surprise but not so completely that I didn’t have an exit plan. I wanted a safe harbor for myself in those hard days, and it seemed I could temporarily do that here in a place I controlled.

When you create a Substack account, you are walked through lots of questions about the identity you are building. I didn’t have a brand to transfer because I’m no influencer. I wasn’t trying to sell a book or get tenure, and so there were no articles to fill the blank space. Instead, I worked to create the kind of place I wanted to stay — a place that felt safe and interesting and could serve as a refuge if need be. I debated about putting up a paywall but in the end decided to keep things open to whomever felt like dropping by.

I also wanted to talk about hard things, but I’ve found I’m not brave enough just yet to do that at length.

And so, I just began writing without being housed under any sort of theme. I wrote short essays about whatever topic captivated me long enough to write. Weekly emails full of interesting things from around the web became a tool to hold me accountable to just.keep.writing. Gift guides that took hours to build translated into a major accomplishment in a season when my whole life felt adrift. There were technical glitches to solve, and platforms to learn, but it all worked together to rebuild hope and courage in me.

These days, my writing must be stuffed into the corners of days thanks to a full calendar and long commutes. But I’m still here writing one year on. I may not have a brand or massive following, but I have you and that is the greatest gift.