hi, everyone.
this is most definitely not the message anyone was expecting to see from me right now, especially after everything i've been hyping up, and even more so due to the fact that i just returned. i've rewritten this quite a few times because i didn't want it to sound detached or scripted or like i'm trying to quietly slip away again without leaving everyone with some clarification. so, before i go down the long list of reasons i've made this decision, i'll just state in plainly:
this is me announcing my indefinite hiatus from tumblr.
i owe my community more honesty than anything when things like this to come to mind, and this past week has really settled the decision for me. i think, for a long time, i tried to push through and dance around something that didn't feel right anymore, hoping the spark of motivation and pure enjoyment would come back if i forced it hard enough, and sometimes it did. sometimes i'd get little sparks of motivation to write for something, get attached to the idea, and then inevitably forget or get bored of it. and that's not true motivation.
writing is still something i love—it really is. that part of me and my character hasn't gone anywhere, and i don't think it will for a while. but even with that, burnout is real, and it doesn't always show up as "i'm not really interested in this right now, so i'm stopping entirely." sometimes it looks like forcing yourself to create when it doesn't feel natural anymore, or trying to recreate a feeling that just isn't there at the moment and doesn't flow as smoothly as used to. sometimes you drift away from the things that once meant everything to you, but that doesn't mean they're gone forever—it just means you need space from them. i've been through this sort of feeling before, back when i was making my transition from wattpad to tumblr and had to relearn what writing really meant to me, how much joy it brought to me. this feels like a harder, more intense version of it, but still the same idea at it's core.
i also need to acknowledge the way i'm handling things and how this looks. i just came back, i made promises, i talked about ideas and pieces of work i was excited for, i let everyone believe big things were right around the corner... and now i'm disappearing again. i truly meant everything i said at the time. but that doesn't change the fact that i'm leaving again before any of that could actually come to fruition. it's not fair to hint at something coming "so soon" and then disappear.
i've caught myself doing that a lot in the past, and i don't want to go back to old, bad habits. that leaves people waiting for something that never comes, not how soon they were expecting at least, and i want to apologize wholeheartedly for that. none of you guys deserve to be left hanging like that, especially not twice.
another part of this message that i can't leave out is environment here lately. katsblr hasn't felt the same for a while now. there's been a shift—more tension, more arguments, more people going at each other, more pressure to be on the "right" side of things, more toxicity. it feels like everywhere you look, people are fighting, someone is trying to fix a problem bigger than they're capable of handling, someone else is lying, or doubling down, or pulling other people into the fire, and trying to exist in that space while also creating is exhausting. it got to a point where logging on felt more like a chore than the usual excitement i usually felt when coming on and interacting with the community. like i had to prepare myself for what was going to happen, or who was going to be fighting that day.
i think what affected me the most was realizing how much i was pretending to be fine with it. i was trying to keep up, trying to stay positive and keep in my own little corner of katsblr, trying to act like none of it was getting to me or my head when it absolutely was. wearing that kind of mask all the time drains more out of you than you realize at the beginning, especially when you're already dealing with burnout. the negativity didn't just stay here, either, it started bleeding into how i felt offline too.
because the truth is, when i stepped away for longer periods of time, things got much better. so much better it was noticeable by the people in my personal life. i felt lighter, more present. i started paying attention to what was actually happening around me instead of constantly checking in on here and trying to stuff myself into a box i didn't fit into. my life has been really good, and i don't say that lightly. i've been happier, less anxious, more grounded and active—and it made me realize how much of that anxiety was tied to being online, to tumblr specifically, to feeling like i always had to be active or engage in the movements people were trying to start.
so this is me choosing to step back entirely. like before, i'm not giving a set return date, or a "i'll be active to interact," just this long message. truthfully, i don't know when i'll be back, or what that even looks like if i make the decision to come back.
all i know right now is that this is what i need to continue on and be a better version of myself. i've really grown to dislike the internet, and that's becoming super apparent with how often i disappear, and that's really the message behind this entire thing. to whoever made it this far and took time out of their day to read this, thank you. thank you for reading my stories, supporting me, caring about my writing and me as a person at all. that's something i'll carry with me forever, even if i'm not here.
thank you,
amiyah.
