I named my newsletter Still Unwritten... and then, for two months, it was.
[Photo pair: bright balcony on the left, night balcony on the right]
Same chair. Same mug. Same hoodie. Different light.
The photo on the right is real. I took it in the dark, in that early quiet hour where most of what I’ve built has come from. I’ve used it twice. Once for my last Feature Story, The First Story You Tell Yourself, here on July 31, and once for my first and only Substack essay on September 12, Coming Back Is The Muscle.
The photo on the left isn’t real.
I’m telling you that up front, because everything else I’m about to share is true... and I don’t want a made-up picture sitting quietly next to a true story.
I asked an AI tool to take my real photo and imagine it in daylight. Same chair. Same mug. Same hoodie. Same table on the same balcony... which is exactly where I’m sitting right now, writing this, in actual afternoon light. There just wasn’t anyone around to take the picture.
So I didn’t wait for someone to show up.
I used what I had.
Hold onto that. It turns out to be the whole point of this story.
Here’s what I planned.
All year, every week, I shared a Feature Story, really an essay on this site... my lived experiences, and the lived experiences of others, about how we feel about ourselves and the lives we’re living.
As I shared on July 31, I published one called The First Story You Tell Yourself. It was about the story a scale hands you before your feet even hit the floor... and how that story only gets to keep your whole day if you let it.
Then I decided to move my weekly writing to Substack. A new home. A bigger room. A good intention.
Here’s what I didn’t do.
I didn’t publish anything for six weeks.
I honestly can’t tell you what the delay was. Nothing dramatic. Nothing anyone watching would have noticed. Just a pause... that kept getting longer.
Then I finally did what I said I’d do.
On September 12, I published my first Substack essay, Coming Back Is The Muscle, and I really liked it. It was about the moment you drift off course, the quiet voice that says well, there it goes again, and the truth underneath it... drifting was never the failure. Coming back is the muscle.
I ended it like this:
Come back next week.
I’ll be here.
Still writing. Still unwritten.
And then...
Be careful what you call something. It just might become what you called it.
Not long after that essay went live, I got locked out of my account. I haven’t been able to get back in since.
I did what most of us do. I asked for help. But the only help I could find was a chatbot, and after thirty minutes down a rabbit hole with it, I was told a representative would reach out…
That was two months ago. Two months to the day, actually.
Crickets.
Here’s the part I didn’t see.
I stayed frustrated. And frustration turns out to be very good at disguising itself as a reason.
I stopped writing weekly. Not because I had nothing to say. Because the place I’d chosen to say it was behind a door I couldn’t open... and somewhere in there, without ever saying it out loud, I decided that meant I couldn’t say anything at all.
Which made no sense. None.
In that same stretch, I published my first book on Amazon, The Tale Of Your Scale. Written. Finished. Printed. Bound. Available to the world on Amazon.
Not still unwritten... done.
And I was doing very little to let people know it was out there. A little. Not much.
Meanwhile, my website was right here the whole time. The same place I’d published every single week. My email list was right here. My phone was right here.
So let me be as honest with myself as I’d be with you. I wrote an essay called Coming Back Is The Muscle...and then I didn’t come back.
In that essay I wrote that the step off course was never the danger. The tale stacked on top of the step was the danger. And then I stacked a tale on top of a locked door.
I can’t publish until they let me back in.
That sentence felt so obviously true that I never stopped to ask the question I’ve asked more than 10,000 people... is this even true?
It wasn’t. The door was locked. That was the fact. Everything after that... the waiting, the stalling, the weeks sliding by... that part, I added.
Here’s the strange part.
The picture at the top of this page is made up... and it tells the truth. I’m here. In the light. Writing.
The sentence I told myself for two months was built entirely out of real things. A real locked door. A real request for help. A real silence. And it told a lie.
A tale doesn’t have to be made up to be false. It only needs you to stop questioning it.
Here’s what I got. I hope you get it sooner than I did.
The sooner you get back on the trail, even if it isn’t the trail you wanted, the better. Every time.
Standing at a locked trailhead waiting for someone to come open it feels like patience. It isn’t. It’s standing still. And standing still has a way of quietly becoming the thing you’re doing.
The trail I wanted was Substack. The trail I had was this one... the one I’d been walking for months. It was never closed. I just stopped looking at it because it wasn’t the one I’d picked.
You might know your own version.
The gym you meant to join, so you skipped the walk around the block. The plan that came apart on Wednesday, so you waited for Monday. The coach, the class, the app, the person who was supposed to get back to you... and while you waited, nothing moved.
The locked door is real.
The waiting is optional.
This morning, the light changed.
My daughter Jennifer helped me break out of my own self-imposed funk. No lecture. She just sat down with me and we got to work.
We rebranded my newsletter on my website to Still Unwritten. I rewrote the messaging here on my website too. Same name. Same intention. A different trail... one I already owned.
I haven’t given up on getting back into my Substack account. I’d still love that room.
And I’m never again letting myself stop myself from writing and publishing.
Because come on... if there’s one thing none of us can say anymore, it’s that we have nowhere to share what we want to share. It’s there, 24/7. A website. A newsletter. A post. A text to one person who needs to hear it today. The trail is almost always closer than the one we’re staring at.
So whatever you’ve been waiting on... a door to open, a reply to come, the perfect conditions to line up... here’s the question I finally asked myself, sitting in this same chair, in real light this time.
What’s the trail you already have?
Take one step on it today. Even if it isn’t the one you wanted.
Especially then.
Coming Back Is Still The Muscle. I’m using mine right now.
Come back next Thursday.
I’ll be here. For real this time.
Still writing. Still unwritten.
J...
Before You Go…
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Either way… let’s keep showing up.
One day.
One decision.
One 16-hour gift at a time…
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