That’s the question I had to ask myself yesterday when I got into a “discussion” about how unhappy my husband believes I have been with my writing life. I don’t blame him for believing this. I have been pushing myself really hard the last few months, doing something new and different, and maybe I haven’t been happy, but I think growth and changing one’s perspective can be stressful and sometimes not very enjoyable.

To be honest, the last few years have been new and different for me. Shifting my focus to writing, publishing (2 books!), reading and editing for literary magazines and being an active participant in the online literary community has taken much of my energy and creative life away from the other things I spent that energy on in the past.

In the last year, I kept telling myself I would find balance but I started something new in January and had to throw that out the window. I don’t need to be happy all the time but I think my current pace is not sustainable, and I have to be honest with myself about that.

That’s a lot of honesty when the cherry blossoms are blooming in my city - I don’t need to be reminded of the ephemerality of life - that might push me to push myself harder. So here’s me telling you, and myself, to slow down, take a breath and maybe reevaluate why you are doing all of this in the first place. Maybe I won’t be happy but maybe I won’t be unhappy either. Maybe I will just be…