She used to be mine.

On former versions of ourselves

I can get obsessed with songs. Almost always, the songs I get hooked on are slow and sad ones. I talked about my love for bittersweet songs in my author newsletter, but I’m bringing it up here because, over the past year, there’s one song that I have played over and over again.

On its surface, Sara Bareilles’s song “She Used to Be Mine” from the Broadway musical Waitress is about the plot of that story—a pregnant waitress in an abusive relationship who feels she can’t escape. Therefore, this song shouldn’t connect with me on a personal level since I’m definitely not pregnant (!) and I’m in a wonderful relationship. But, but, but…I couldn’t stop playing it.

Why?

When I stopped and thought about it, I realized that what I was connecting with was the core idea of the song—she’s mourning the loss of a former version of herself. (If you can’t listen to the video, you can read the lyrics here.)

Throughout life, we have many different versions of ourselves. Thank God, because how boring would that be otherwise? Evolving as a person is good. We learn, we grow, we change. But sometimes in that process, we also lose pieces of ourselves that we might miss later on.

Over the last few years, writing has been a grind for me. There have been moments of joy in it. There have been good days where I hit flow. I still love hearing from readers when they’ve enjoyed something I’ve written.

But overall, a lot of the fun of creating has been sucked out by The Business of Being an Author and my own high-strung achiever personality. Worrying about deadlines, what’s right for the market, how to sell books in an increasingly glutted marketplace, how to keep up with authors who can put out a book a month (Spoiler alert: I will never be able to keep up with that, lol.), how to best use the ever-changing social media platforms, publishing platforms, etc.

It’s put me in burnout mode a number of times and last February, almost a year to the day actually, I hit the wall and decided I needed to take a 6-month sabbatical. It was a great decision that I’m sure I’ll talk about in a future newsletter. But looking back over what got me to that point, I can see that I had lost that girl who used to write stories in purple pen in her Mead notebooks in high school. The girl who used to write for the love of it even when she knew no one would see it. Telling the story was its own reward. The PROCESS of creating something was the gold star.

I haven’t been that girl for a long time.

I’m not this version below either. The one who couldn’t get over seeing her books on the shelves. This is 2012, the year my first two books came out.

That smile is the “my dream has come true” smile. And my dream has come true! And I’m beyond grateful and still amazed that it happened. However, now when my new books come out, it’s more of a feeling of relief because it means I’m done with the stressful part. ←And that last sentence is why we’re here, friends. :)

I let myself become a malnourished writer in mind, body, and spirit. And I’ve vowed to get at least part of that “girl who used to be mine” back.

I’m not on Day One of this journey. This started a year ago with the sabbatical. I couldn’t have written about this publicly at that time because I was too deep in it to have any helpful insight to share. I needed the last year of journaling and experimenting and getting my health back on track to get to a place where I could have some perspective.

Having said that, I also don’t have everything figured out, lol. Sorry! Still working on it over here. But I hope that by documenting the journey, I’ll be able to share some things that might be helpful to you if you’re experiencing the same things. (Or, if you're a new writer, how to avoid some of these bumpy roads.) I also hope this can be a place for conversation because I know I’m not the only one with something to share.

So, welcome! I’m glad you’re here. Let’s talk.

—Roni

---

A Little Extra Nourishment

Even when we encounter something we enjoy, we can be quick to fasten it to a punishing schedule: we should run six mornings a week, we should read five books on vacation, we should turn our hobby of pickling into a side hustle. Where did all the joy go? It disappears amid the regulations we set up and our focus on the outcome.

—from I Didn’t Do The Thing Today: Letting Go of Productivity Guilt by Madeleine Dore

Now, it’s your turn! Any thoughts? Do you have a version of yourself that used to be yours that you want back?