Hi friends

I’m currently on the longest stretch of annual leave I have taken in three years. Yes self-care!!

I’ve made it standard practice since my Big Burnout a few years ago that I take one week of leave every three months whether I want to or not. If I don’t do this, I’m liable to slowly transform into a melted-down gibbering wreck, talking a lot but not saying very much. These periods of leave are designed for me to turn down the buzzing in my head that comes with having a busy life and a busier brain.

The thing is - I’m my own worst enemy. I see a great expanse of time before me and think ‘I need to make the most of this.’ Yep, I try to optimise my time off because of my latent toxic productivity mindset. It’s still there, wanting me to make progress at all times, even if it means I burn myself out whilst on leave.

Before I know it, I’ve filled every day of leave with some sort of commitment or pressure, usually involving visiting people or getting some well-overdue lifemin tasks done. Leaving no days to, you know, actually rest.

By the end of the last time I took leave in January, I wished I had had another week off. I was exhausted. Not ideal.

I’ve written before about my struggles to rest. How should a person like me rest? Maybe I am afraid of rest because I’ve always associated rest with being bored. I live in fear of being bored, mainly because it makes me feel physically uncomfortable (does anyone else experience this?). This, plus the toxic productivity that plagues me, makes for a bad recipe.

The thing with rest is that it doesn’t have to be the classic static activity. I have to remind myself this by questioning what rest actually means to me. Is it…

Lying down in a dark room staring at a wall?

Have tried this. Having no stimulation can immediately relieve my brain bees until something switches and all of a sudden I’m climbing the walls like Spiderman.

Consuming copious amounts of rot and slowly anaesthetising your brain bees?

Shout out to Culinary Class Wars on Netflix which really serves this purpose for me. However, just to humble brag for a second, I deleted my Instagram account a few weeks ago. Not just the app, the account I’ve had since I was about 18. I am both proud of myself and mourning the loss of access to profiles of people I haven’t spoken to in years. Actually, on second thoughts, I don’t feel too badly about it…

Anyway, brain rot isn’t for me in the long run, I come out of my week off feeling like I’ve wasted it, and not very rested.

Creating stuff - art, writing, literally anything - without any expectations and pressure?

For me, it’s this and I always forget it’s this. I get free time and I think ‘I should create something now’ and my executive dysfunction goes ‘Oh no you won’t, you’ll stay here on the sofa thinking about it for hours.’ When I finally get myself in gear (usually involving lots of self-care to ensure my mental health is up to scratch) and create, I feel better.

I always always always feel better when I make art. I get to use my brain without being stressed out, letting my imagination run free. It also lets me step into a monotropic flow that brings me a lot of joy - I swear hyperfocus can be good for the soul.

So I have over a week of creating stuff ahead of me. I want to draw more, write some newsletters and work on new poems that could maybe be included in my next zine.

Ultimately I want to enjoy myself and make some messy, bad art. That’s it.

I’m particularly excited to load some new film into my second-hand 35mm camera and take photos of any old thing. I don’t think I ever shared any of the photos I took when I got my first roll of film developed a few months ago, so some of them will feature in my new zine. Photography is brilliant because it gets you out of the house (unless you have an enormous and endlessly interesting house, and I do not).

How do you rest? Let me know in the comments or by replying to this email. I love hearing from you!

How about some Wavy Mail?

Selling my poetry zine has been such a lovely, positive experience and I want to build on it. Rather than just offering my next zine for sale on its own, I am also considering making a ‘snail mail club’ - sending stuff I make to you in the post.

Basically, I’d offer the new zine, plus an A5 art print, a new sticker of a scribbly illustration, and a letter to you. Not every zine will be poetry, I am planning on making zines around other themes and formats too - think neurodiversity, burnout, masking, sobriety, queerness, silliness and whimsy. Think exclusive essays and photos, poems and art.

I’d send a new package out every three months, giving me enough time to make a new zine and new artwork. I reckon it’d be about £10 a package including delivery for people in the UK (international folks, I reckon it’d be about £15 inc delivery but that could vary). There would be an option to subscribe for one quarter, two quarters etc and up to a year if you so wished.

I’m going to make sure all the items are as high quality as they can be for the budget I have in mind. I want to be really proud of this work and I want you all to enjoy it.

What do you reckon? If you’re interested and would seriously consider subscribing for at least a month, can you do me a favour and vote below so I know what your thoughts are please? (Lol I’ve taken the ‘no’ option off - I don’t need that kind of heartbreak in my life… If you’re not interested just skip the poll please and thank you)

This is very exciting and even if I don’t get much take up, it will generate lots of new items for the Etsy shop for people to purchase individually if they wish.

By the way, did you know that my entire newsletter archive is available to read on Patreon? (One day it’ll be available to read on my website, but silly me pressed the wrong option when I set up my website and I can’t add a blog right now, drat!)

Anyways, check out all of my old posts here if you like. Behind-the-scenes emails for supporters will be returning soon, where I’ll write more in depth about my experiences running an online shop with a wavy brain.

I’m off to make more scribbly illustrations. I’m going to set up an Etsy listing for commissions of bespoke scribbly illustrations by the way, for a laugh. I appreciate you all very much, you made me extremely delulu about my art and writing and now I have a shop and sell stuff. Doesn’t get better than that.

Take it easy,

Ren