Episode 25: Dusting Off The Drafts
A little of what's been on my mind this year
What I’m Thinking About
Hey friends!
I am so excited to return to this space. I think about my Substack all the time. The things I want to say but don’t make time to like the cool things that are happening in my life and the struggles as well.
This post has no goal other than to get back into the muscle of writing and POSTING. Posting is where I struggle the most. Like I said, I think about writing all the time lol. I write in my journal a lot and I’ve gotten better at posting short form things to my Substack feed, but I never post to my subscribers. I want to change the format of my Substack to try something new in order to make this not feel as “daunting” of a task since it’s supposed to bring me joy. When I figure that out I’ll update yall!
In the meantime, I have a few things I want to chat about…
I chose not to have a “word” for this year.
Over the last decade, I’ve started every year the same. I pick a word to describe how I want the year to feel, I complete some variation of the 21-day Daniel’s Fast, and I delete my social media apps. I LOVE how quiet January is and never really consider it the “new year” yet. For me it’s a nice time to shake off the previous year, reflect, and just hibernate. I don’t really determine how I want the new year to feel until around February.
I needed this year to be a little different because I wanted a chance to just BE. I have strived and been goal driven what feels like my entire 35 years of existence and I am just tired. I haven’t written at length about 2025, but it was a hard year of finally knocking off goals that had taken years to accomplish. It wasn’t until my friend Dr. Amber L. Wright brought it up one day in our many voice note exchanges, that I realized how much time and energy went into all of those accomplishments. I was very disciplined financially for years to be able to pay off all of my consumer debt AND buy a house in the same year, lose weight, push through Invisalign treatment, travel, and show up as a functioning human at work and in my personal life (#barely).
As a “recovering over achiever seeking rest and joy” (my substack bio), I just wanted to exist in 2026 without any concrete goals or expectations other than to LIVE. I wanted to enjoy all of the things I’ve worked so hard for without the expectation of “what’s next”. My job is secure. The house is purchased. The car is paid off. I’m just chillin and spending my hard earned money now!
This has allowed me to be intentional about doing things for the fun of it. There is a magic that happens when your schedule is clear and has space for spontaneity and I am grateful to be here. Most days I look forward to having nothing to do after the work day has ended just as much as I look forward to meeting up with a friend for a walk or for dinner on a whim (or if it’s pre-planned…I want to talk about this more at length too. TBD).
Pulling back from Instagram
The other thing I’ve wanted to write long form about is Instagram. They confuse me, but I’ve long admired folks who I know that live a very full and exciting life and never post. They confuse me because they are chronically online, and never post. Like huh? How are you not motivated to share what you’re up to but you consume what everyone else is doing? Outside of my confusion regarding their consumption, I actually like that they don’t post. It makes the conversation much richer when I can learn something for the first time when I see them.
Which brings me to a pet peeve I’ve always had. I hated when I posted chronically across IG and Twitter, then I would meet up with someone and get excited to tell them about something I did recently and they’d respond with “I know, I saw it on Instagram/Twitter”. Excuse me, you didn’t get the DETAILS on IG, don’t steal my thunder, please lol. I felt ridiculous for getting upset about that since I was the one sharing all the things, but it didn’t mean that I didn’t want to talk about it IN PERSON!
Outside of that, I’ve noticed that when I delete the app from my phone, I am 10x more productive. That app is way too addictive and takes up so much time. In my effort to reduce how much time I’m on IG and to make my in-person conversations richer, I moved to only doing monthly dumps of what I’m up to, with no caption - just to add to the intrigue lol. I also posted more to my “close friends”, not because what I was posting needed to be private, I just wanted a smaller number of interactions with people on that app to limit my time on the platform, hence why my comments are generally off.
Now I don’t even have a strategy. I don’t post my day to day and rarely post events I attend. I post when I feel led. Like yesterday when I posted a weekend recap. I haven’t done anything like that in a while, but it feels nostalgic for what IG used to be.
And don’t even get me started on the mental health implications of IG. That’s another story for another day, but these apps are truly bad for our mental health overall and I can’t wait for the day that they phase out (I know they won’t but a girl can dream).
I have so much more I can’t wait to share now that I am getting out of my own way and rebuilding this writing muscle.
I truly hope yall have been well and look forward to re-engaging! Send a note or comment if anything resonates - let’s chat!
Until next time,
Dr. KB
Random photos from my favorites album so far this year…I deleted photos I took with others because I realized I probably should get their consent…
What I’m Reading
I’ve been in my reading bag lately as a way to stop watching tv before bed. Plus the Black romance authors have been back to back with their new releases! So that I won’t spend more time on this post than I need to, I’m just going to post all the titles here with my Goodreads rating…
What I’m Watching
Basketball, duh! The WNBA is back - tap in!
What I’m Vibin’ to
More on this later, but I am thinking about launching a YouTube Channel for me to DJ! A few months ago I purchased new turntables to DJ an event, but the vision was to possibly launch a DJ channel on YouTube! (if you missed it, I used to DJ in a past life lol)
I discover so many new songs on Spotify and I need a place to share them. Stay tuned, but in the meantime, here is a playlist I am curating with R&B songs by men. I don’t know if this will be the first set that I do and I am wrecking my brain for a proper playlist title, so let me know what you think!
I love when you feel like writing!🤩
This was good! I like the rundown format a lot. Who needs IG when you can dump it all here right quick. I struggle with Substack myself. Seeing it through, actually PUBLISHING IT. So I def get it.