The Recovery Period for a Serial Essayist

I’m genuinely bugged by “ad supported” streaming services. I pay for Hulu, Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video, and I still get ads. So, when the commercial break hit, it startled me. It came out louder than it had any right to, louder than the slow scene I had been half-watching (maybe one-quarter watching), and it felt like someone hit a pan with a wooden spoon just to see who would flinch. I sat there, the remote sitting on the floor next to me. I grabbed it and muted the TV, too late. Then I wondered why the silence afterward felt somehow… theatrical.

My laptop was sitting next to me on the floor. I almost never write and watch TV at the same time. I mean, I hardly ever watch TV at all unless I’m watching a Hallmark movie with my wife (we like the mysteries).

Honestly, I thought finishing a long stretch of essays would feel like unclenching my fists. I expected some kind of release, maybe even a little swagger. It’s the kind that shows up when you’ve done a thing that took more out of you than you realized. Instead, the day after almost felt like waking up from a nap I didn’t plan. One of those where you sit on the edge of the bed and squint at the floor because your brain forgot what comes next.

I’ve written more than 140 essays in the last seven months. They line up in a long row behind me. Suddenly, there’s no “next slot” to fill. I’ve had the essays planned out and scheduled on ClickUp since April. Now, I have more time to act like a normal person. I fold socks again. My big win a few days ago was matching five pairs of previously un-matched socks. I also pulled out a drawer that hasn’t aligned quite right for a long time. There’s something in the track that makes the drawer stick right as you try to open it. I can’t figure it out.

I’ve also tried resting, although most days it seems like I can’t rest until I write something first.

The day after the sock incident, I was at lunch with a friend. We were both chewing on our Crown Burger fries. I was listening to a guy sitting in the booth across from us, explaining something to a woman who kept checking her phone. From the sounds of it, it was something work related, but for some reason it hit me like a guy who was trying to chart something he didn’t understand. I listened just long enough to decide he had never finished anything that haunted him, the kind of project that leaves a mark you feel when you take out the trash or stand too long in your kitchen at night.

There is a strange hollowness after effort. Your mind keeps bracing for one more assignment, and when the assignment never comes, the body keeps waiting anyway. It reminds me of turning off a truck that has idled too long; the engine quiets, yet something hums inside it for a few seconds, long enough to make you think it might start up again.

I found myself staring at old drafts today; ones that I chose not to publish. It’s likely no one will ever read them. I opened one of them, fixed a few commas, changed a few words, then realized I would never publish it and closed it. I couldn’t tell if the habit felt comforting or ridiculous. Creativity does that sometimes. It leaves the room, but leaves its coat with you, so you keep expecting it to return.

Any minute now.

Nothing in this feels like a revelation. Nothing here carries the glamour of insight. It is simply the part that follows the work, the part where the world looks the same as it did before, although you feel different in a way you cannot articulate without sounding dramatic. You keep showing up to your own life and notice that most of it looks ordinary, and maybe that ordinary texture was always the point.

The commercial break has not come back on. The house is still, and the day keeps passing at its usual pace. I don’t feel triumphant or lost. I feel like someone who just set something heavy on the ground and has not yet decided what to pick up next.