The wonder and terror of a mind that doesn't work like everyone else's.

I don't want to say goodbye.

I feel like so much of my life is spent waiting for my mind to stop its paralyzing death-spiral of why-can’t-I-work-like-other-people. And then the fog clears and I can work again and write again and it all seems so easy. Until it doesn’t. And then I panic again that I’ll be stuck in the nothingness forever while everyone rushes past me.

I’ve gathered and treasured so many amazing tools and tricks and life-rafts that have helped me navigate and keep going, but sometimes…

Sometimes I just wish there was a cure. A way to trade the unpredictable “IT’S-ALL-OR-NOTHING-AND-NEVER-ANYTHING-IN-BETWEEN” workings of my brain to something that I could depend on every single day.

Sometimes my mind is a sharp knife. Sometimes it’s an empty amusement park. Sometimes it’s a compost heap of garbage where unexpected things grow… Things that may be poisonous. Things that may be magical. Things that may be both.

(As I was writing this, substack gave me an error message with a broken icon saying “YOU’VE GONE OFFLINE” which seems almost a little too on-the-nose.)

But what I do know is that the things that make me broken make me who I am, and it gives me a perspective like no one else in the world. And the same thing applies to you, my friend.

I started this substack to see if I could actually finish a year-long project without giving up. I can see the one year anniversary right around the corner and I’m so happy that we did this. It made me create. It made me explore. It made me feel so much less alone sending these letters and drawings out to you and knowing that you’d listen even if it was ridiculous.

And I don’t want to stop.

August and September are hard months for me. I don’t know why - maybe the seasonal change - but I know I’m not alone. And saying goodbye here would be like ending the best and weirdest pen-pal relationship ever and so I’m going to re-up for one more year. I hope you will too.

PS. One thing I want to do this time around is an art exchange…but I’m not sure if people would do it so I’m asking here. One time we did a card exchange on my blog where we left our addresses in the comments (often with fake names or funny nicknames so that if I got something addressed to “Executive Princess” I know where it was coming from) and then people sent cards to each other. Like, thousands of cards were sent out - sometimes anonymously and sometimes not. I got and gave so many myself. And I was thinking how great it would be to do that here…but in the cards or on the postcards we maybe doodled or created a small painting or collage or poem…and then sent tiny original art surprises out into the world. But I don’t know how to do it safely? Suggestions? If nothing else I could just randomly mail out my own small doodles each month and if people want to share their own little art pieces they could mail them to me and I can share snapshots, and at the end of the year I can take them to Nowhere Bookshop for a tiny free gallery opening where anyone can come in and pick up a piece of art from a stranger that speaks to them.

Hmm..I kind of like that.

Thoughts?

Your friend forever,

Jenny