Going On Hiatus

For a few weeks

Abstract Art & Drawing by Matt Murray

I’m going on hiatus for a couple of weeks. I never thought I would have to write this. I have to take a break from writing and reading on Substack. When I started writing on Substack, I was not employed. Now that I am, it’s hard to keep up on a constant basis.

I thought it would be easy to write something every week. And it was but life changes beyond your control.

Once I finish my newsletter for the week, I think I have all this time before I have to send the next one. The next thing I know, it’s here and I have to rush to get something released.

As soon as I started writing on Substack, I have been on the computer every single day except for Thanksgiving and Christmas. It has taken a toll on me. Before Substack, I used to take the weekends off from the computer because I needed a break.

My hours at my job change on a weekly basis. I never know until Friday what hours I will be working for the next week. I was launching my newsletter for the week on my day off. But then some weeks I don’t have a day off. And sometimes, I’m working 9 and 10 days straight. So then I have to figure out at night when I should send it out and more times than I can count I have to write something at the last minute.

Last week, I worked 61 hours. In fact, I worked more hours than any employee, even beating the managers and the GM. And this week I’m scheduled for 47 hours. Working 108 hours in two weeks is a lot. This is the most I have ever worked in a job.

Because of this, I don’t have enough time to devote to other things. A lot of things have been neglected. My shower is in need of a deep clean. 🤣 My DVR has about 53 hours of shows to watch. One dates back to 2022.

My schedule looks like this:

Go to work, come home, eat dinner, jump on the computer for about 2 hours (write, read), watch tv for 1 ½ hours, then go to bed.

This process is repeated every day. I’m exhausted every day when I get home. My job is demanding and it changes all the time.

I hear people on here talking about all of the stuff they do in their free time. With my schedule, I don’t have any time for that. I would like to have some fun. Or relax for that matter.

Subscribers / Substacks I Subscribe To

To those of you that subscribe, read, and post comments, thank you for being here. It has meant so much to me. You’ll never know how much!

To the people who I’m subscribed to, I’ll try to read your newsletters as soon as I’m able. If I’m slow to respond in the comments section, don’t fret. I’ll post something as soon as I can.

A few months ago, I had 93 newsletters in my inbox. It was a whole month’s worth of reading. And I only subscribe to 11 people. Slowly but surely, I read everything that I needed to read.

Conclusion

So with all that said, I hope you understand. I promise I’ll pick up where I left off.

I’ve worked so hard to get subscribers and now I have to put a wrench in it. So I hope you stick around.

I hope to catch up by writing a bunch of stories and having them ready to go, so then maybe I can schedule them. This way, I can relax and calm down and not have to worry about getting them out when they need to. When you start stressing out about just writing a little newsletter and having aches and pains, you know you have to change your ways.

I don’t think I’m doing it enough justice too because #1 I’m not writing it in my notebook like I like to and #2 I’m not writing it on my laptop where I think I can better concentrate on everything.

I’ll try to figure out during this downtime how to proceed. I love writing on this platform. And I love interacting with all of you.

I hope this is only 2 weeks but who knows. Maybe I will have to revert to a twice monthly newsletter.

All I know is I have to start feeling better. It’s not good to feel stressed all the time.

Stepping away for a short time will be good for me.

Until next time, happy reading!

-Matt