tired of writing to y'all about how tired I am

Black women deserve sabbaticals, no. 2

Hello gentle-people,

Today I want to start with a quote from a book I honestly had a hard time with the first time I read it:

“The world is so addicted to the constant labor of Black women….[…]…There is no vision or model of a Black woman to be free from the exploitation of her emotional, physical, and spiritual labor.”

— Tricia Hersey, The Nap Ministry

I am revisiting my notes from the time I took EbonyJanice’s Dream Yourself Free masterclass in 2024. EbonyJanice kept reminding me and the other Black women and femmes in my cohort to dream beyond labor and our own exploitation. And we were having a very hard time.

This summer, I want to embrace the spaciousness my sabbatical will allow for and revisit the tools she gave us. I want to “dream with [my] highest imagination,” as she would often instruct.

I know if I am given the space to dream with my highest imagination and the chance to rest deeply, I may arrive at some truths that will fundamentally change how I do life.

When I say I am tired of writing to y’all about how tired I am, I mean I am tired of the exhaustion that has kept my vision so narrow that in my highest imagination, I was only able to dream up a sabbatical just for myself. There is a world of exhausted Black women who deserve sabbaticals. And I want a gentle landing for all of my friends.

When I say I am tired of writing to y’all about how tired I am, I mean I have been doing it now for over four years. Two years ago, I wrote about rest as vocation in a post called “making it work: on a vocation of softness.” I wrote about labor, the struggle and work and how work and rest as two sides of a vocational coin. Most importantly, I wrote (quoting Sonia Sanchez) about how there is no place for a soft/black/woman. To identify as one is to make a way out of no way.

Photo by Ryan Edem on Unsplash

When I say I am tired of writing to y’all about how tired I am, I mean I need this sabbatical to happen. As I write, I have raised 69% of what I need to cover my basic expenses for the summer. As tired as I am writing about how tired I am, I grow energized thinking about creating the space to rest and dream beyond exhaustion. To create new pathways of softness. To make a way out of no way for myself and those who come alongside me. (In a future newsletter, I will write about how this journey has led me to deepening my desire to resist oppressive systems and lean into more communal expressions of a gentle landing such as mutual aid.)

When I say I am tired of writing to y’all about how tired I am, I mean I have come to the decision to leave Substack at the end of the summer. I have shared some of my reasons in a previous post, but one major reason is I desire to redirect my writing energy to publishing books. I say books plural because one of my dreams is to be an author. This newsletter has helped me gain the confidence to believe in myself as a writer. I am so incredibly grateful for that. I will continue to keep my mailing list and will keep you all up to date about my adventures in pursuing a gentle landing. I just won’t be publishing essays in a newsletter anymore.

If you stick with me, I hope we can land somewhere new together.

I hope you’ll hold on through this transition so that I can eventually share about my first published book.

If not, it has been wonderful to journey with you to arrive at this point. I hope you’ll continue on with me through the summer to celebrate what this newsletter has been.

I started this newsletter with a simple hope: to invite gentle people into a way of life that looks like creating a gentle landing for ourselves and others. I have always wanted the dream to extend beyond a newsletter. Perhaps with the newsletter taking a step back, we’ll finally see what other forms this journey can take.

Wishing you all a gentle landing…even as I advocate for my own. Even as I dream of a world where I can advocate on behalf of others.