It’s with a heavy heart that I bring this news.
If you’ve been following Voyage of the Mind for a time, you’ve probably noticed that I seem a little off lately. Mostly, that posts aren’t coming very frequently.
There are a few reasons for this. But at the root of it, I have to say that I’ve been suffering over the past few months, and that suffering has finally built into something that has a negative impact on my ability to maintain Voyage of the Mind at this time. The current environment, political and otherwise, hasn’t treated me well. It hasn’t treated any of us well. At the beginning of the pandemic crisis, I pretended (perhaps even convinced myself) that none of it affected me. But it has affected me, in many, many ways. I do want to discuss my thoughts on the crisis and my situation with you more in detail, but for now I need to leave them cryptic. Sometimes, we need distance from issues to see clearly.
It’s worth mentioning that I have suffered from mental health issues in the past and continue my struggle with my mental health to this day. Don’t worry about me, though — I’ll pull through. I’ve been through worse. This time happens to pose unique challenges that I’ll tackle, like I tackle all other things.
And the voyage will continue. It will be continuing, even during my time off, as I work on my writing and work on furthering myself as a person. I have so much more to bring to you and to the world, and I’m looking forward to doing so in the near future. Until then, I hope you’ll hang tight, hold on fast to your Voyage of the Mind favorites, and keep yourself informed, safe, and strong in any way possible. This is a difficult time for everyone, not just me. I recognize and respect this. Let’s figure out how to live in our constantly changing world and take bold strides into the future, together.
Signing off for now,
Laura
Hi Laura, Sorry to hear about your personal struggles and as a result your blogging hiatus. Will certainly miss seeing your posts and hearing your reasoned thoughts. It’s totally understandable what you are experiencing. This is indeed a strange and unsatisfactory time for us all and social media sometimes makes it worse, despite all the times that it can be unifying. I also have recently been trying to have a social media detox (which I shamefully re-embraced full on after giving it up for Lent very successfully!). But I’ve been realizing all too acutely that it’s not a good start or end to my day to be compulsively checking certain platforms and being sucked into a vortex of outrage, smartass comments, or just general repetition. I actually looked forward to reading your posts whenever I could as a generally uplifting and inspiring alternative to what is going on in social media!
Anyway, hope you get some good recovery time and come back renewed and refreshed ready to share your renewed perspective on matters!
Thanks so much for the kind words! I’m hoping I’ll be able to bring more posts and reasoned thoughts before long… in the meantime, hopefully some of the unreasonableness in the world will simmer down for a change. I definitely have a love-hate relationship with social media. It’s great to connect with people and an awesome way to promote my stuff, but time consuming and emotionally taxing to have to maintain constantly.
Anyways, I’ll be working hard in the time in between (I have a great novel project going) and am definitely looking forward to bringing more reason to different conversations in the hopefully near future! Thanks again for all your support.
Yes, the fact that your field does involve an almost obligatory use of social media as a platform to self-promote must have its downsides. The novel project sounds great and something to get substantively absorbed in sans distractions! See you in the hopefully near future!
Dear Laura, I am sorry to hear you’re going through a hard time, and I will miss your posts while you take a break, but you are doing the most important thing and taking care of yourself. I hope you feel better soon and that your writing helps you heal. Take care and see you after a break 😊
Thank you for your support, Ingrid. It means so much to me. Hopefully I’ll be feeling better and back on track before long. I hope you stay safe, sane, and healthy too and look forward to seeing you after my break as well. 😊
Thank you: staying those three things are difficult at the moment but I try my best! 😊