There’s a strange kind of exhaustion that happens in the last mile.
Not the dramatic beginning where everything falls apart. Not the messy middle where adrenaline and caffeine carry you through while you pretend you’re “fine” and accidentally use dry shampoo as a personality trait.
No, I’m talking about the last stretch.
The part where the rainbow is finally visible, but your legs suddenly feel heavier than ever.
That’s where I’ve been lately.
Back in January, I started writing another book. It pulls from real-life emotions and situations that hit close enough to home that sometimes the lines between fiction and reality blur a little more than I expected.
And somewhere along the way… I got stuck.
Not because life is bad. Ironically, life is actually good.
Work is good.
My kids are good.
My friends are incredible.
I’m healthy.
I laugh a lot.
There’s love in my life.
Peace, even.
Which honestly feels suspicious sometimes because I spent years functioning like a woman emotionally trained by plot twists.
This summer, another book I co-authored with Paul Aubin called The Family Secret comes out in August, and I’m genuinely excited about it. It’s currently in final proofing and typesetting with the publisher which sounds very glamorous until you realize it mostly involves staring at commas and wondering why chapter headers suddenly feel deeply personal.
I think this new project was my attempt to keep the momentum going. Keep producing. Keep building. Keep creating.
Because when you’re a writer, there’s this weird pressure to always have “the next thing” cooking.
Like sourdough moms.
But emotionally unstable.
But maybe what I actually needed wasn’t more momentum.
Maybe I needed a breath.
An emotional tune-up.
A rebuilding season.
A quieter pace without guilt attached to it.
After sixteen years of writing books, blogs, articles, and stories, I’ve learned something important:
Sometimes creative burnout isn’t about failure.
Sometimes it’s about emotional saturation.
Sometimes you’ve simply lived too much of the story while trying to write it.
And maybe that’s where I’ve been.
I think for years I created from adrenaline:
heartbreak,
reinvention,
survival mode,
stress,
hope,
grit,
coffee.
Definitely coffee.
But peace is quieter.
Peace doesn’t bang pots and pans demanding to become art immediately. Peace just sits softly in the room waiting for your nervous system to stop pacing long enough to notice it.
And maybe that changes creativity too.
Maybe the spark doesn’t disappear forever.
Maybe it just gets tired.
Maybe it needs rest instead of pressure.
Maybe it comes back slower, steadier, healthier.
I’m beginning to think maybe peace plus a tiny spark is actually enough fuel for the next chapter.
Not frantic striving.
Not proving.
Not forcing.
Just a little hope.
A little rest.
A little curiosity returning.
Maybe creativity comes back the same way healing does:
quietly…
gradually…
without announcing itself first.
And maybe the last mile feels the hardest because deep down, somewhere underneath the weariness, you already know you’re going to make it.
