…no.

No, I don’t want to do this anymore.

Not this, these Sunday notes. These I love. These make me happy. I like to learn and share what I’ve learned, and sometimes, it resonates with another person walking this planet and they let me know, and that makes me happy too.

It’s all the rest of it.

The tools I created for writers that I turned into a business. It was fine—and fun!—at first, but then it became a machine and I was the fuel.

The library that I loved that I turned into a volunteer job until I made some rule in my head that they would be mad at me if I stopped volunteering. It’s one of my favorite places in Cincinnati, staffed with some of my favorite people, but I stopped going there.

On Friday, outside the door to Walgreens, a voice behind me called, “Jule!” It was Chris from the library.

When I saw him, I realized how much I missed the library, missed his, “Hi, Jule” from behind the counter as I came through the library’s gleaming oak and old glass door.

“I want to come back to the library, but I don’t want to volunteer anymore,” I blurted.

Chris broke into a broad smile, framed by his reddish bushy beard.

“Come back to the library. Don’t volunteer!”

He said it twice.

The Friday before last I decided to close my writer’s group coaching program. The focus on leads and likes and subscribers had become exhausting.

There are speaking commitments to complete, one in December and one in March. There are some updates to tools. There are a few more videos I’d like to leave behind in the YouTube library. There are some conversations with writers to have. But after that, it’s done.

I don’t need to earn money to prove my worth.

I don’t need to put a price on what I produce to make it valuable.

I’ve written these “I don’t need to prove my worth” words before, and maybe I’ll write them again.

That’s okay.

Still learning is better than not learning.

Chewing the Cud of Good

Thankful for little gifts, these from the compost pile at Sawyer Point park.