Here’s a strange thing about me: I love creating content. I don’t particularly love the spotlight. I love the idea of it.

Since my years working at O, The Oprah Magazine, I’ve been a big believer in the feeling that people want—and need—to feel seen. Heard. Understood. And that holds true, but you know how people say “both things can be true” about having opposing feelings at once? Well, I’m realizing that’s also true of the need to feel seen—and also anonymous.

When people DM or email me about Life Between Weekends, I’m always surprised: Oh gosh, you know about my blog? You read it? As in, actual people and not just bots?!

Even though somewhere between 20,000 and 35,000 visits are logged each month, there’s a relative anonymity here. Life Between Weekends has been kind of a safe space; it’s where I write the stories I don’t produce for my day job. It’s less strategic, more free-flowing. It feeds that part of me that just wants, as Liz Gilbert once put it, to follow my curiosity.

There’s been this strange yet delightful dichotomy of having something so public, that has readers and attention, yet isn’t fully connected to me.

And that’s what’s interesting: At different stages in this site’s nearly 12-year history (!!), I’ve wanted it to take off…and I’ve wanted it to stay my whimsical little creative outlet. I rarely promote it to friends or colleagues or on social media. There’s been this strange yet delightful dichotomy of having something so public, that has readers and attention, yet isn’t fully connected to me.

In the growing era of citizen and independent journalists, almost everybody has a Substack…except me. I’ve thought about it, but beyond feeling like one more thing to take on, it also made me confront that online dichotomy: Sometimes it feels like I’m shouting into the void—does anybody really read this stuff, unless it’s an SEO-driven listicle?!—and sometimes, I love that. I can say the words, share the idea, and see what resonates.

But that’s the thing: If I step back, I realize because there’s the glaring truth that I don’t want the criticism, the judgment, the potential of throwing-a-party-and-having-no-one-show-up sense of rejection. Here, I’m public with a safety net. There are no like counts, my analytics aren’t open for the world to see (though I just flashed them above). So, part of that comfort of shouting into the void is my own fear holding me back. That’s worth pushing against.

But–going back to the “two things can be true” mentality—it also reminds me that not everything needs to be weighed and measured. Or approved of by others. (Does everything have to come back to a struggle with people-pleasing?!) With Life Between Weekends not so connected to me, I can connect with people outside of my circle, who have no assumptions or preconceived notions of who I am or who I’m expected to be. I can just be.

Earlier this year, I asked ChatGPT to analyze Life Between Weekends’s content. It was completely befuddled by the Fulfillment section and suggested I remove it, as it was earnest and didn’t fit in with the cheeky, silly food and “fun” content I’d been creating. It wasn’t strategic.

And that’s when I realized that was the part of this site I was missing the most: the soul-sharing. The occasional riffs where I simply share what’s on my heart, versus the cool thing you should check out ASAP, fully optimized for eyeballs to scan. You may not be here for that, and that’s fine. That’s the part of the site that’s for me, but I hope others find something there too.

This site was founded on a mission to help people extract more joy and meaning from each day, whether that’s the lighthearted glee of making Elf-inspired pancakes or the deeper, more satisfying call to find purpose in your 9-to-5, even if it’s not the role you want.

Life’s too short to live any other way.

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PS—The lead photo is a series I snapped when taking my son to the beach at sunset. He kept shouting “Peez! Stay!” from Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things,” and it felt oddly appropriate for this missive.