Trading Spaces
Substack, setbacks, and fantasy scones
Ta-da! Welcome to My Side Piece’s new platform, Substack!
I took a few weeks off from writing to get settled in this new space and our new home. Unsurprisingly, I’m still in a state of flux.
Since my last post, I’ve migrated the blog, revamped my website, left the condo, and moved in with my in-laws while we wait for the renovations to finish.
A lot of moving. No settling.
This in-between period has been disenchanting.
For weeks I’ve been looking forward to a brand new process and brand new house. I have a fantasy of standing in my new kitchen, baking blueberry scones, with my article draft and snazzy new website open on the island. The picture of a relaxed writer.
Even though I’ve never baked a scone in my life.
That bubble burst the first time when our contractor suggested we spend a week or two out of the space.
“We’ll work faster that way” he assured me.
So we made plans to head to Burlington, tempering our disappointment with the usual things you say: “This makes more sense,” “It’s only a couple of weeks,” and “No one wants to live through a renovation anyway.”
In the meantime, we’ve been overwhelmed by the amount of work that will be left waiting for us. My browser is filled with open tabs on paint colours, how to rip out carpets, fixing retaining walls, and a selection of furniture reviews.
Not to mention the YouTube videos about coding and domain switches that I’ve been struggling with for days. Who knew blog writing came with so much HTML?
The second hit to my fantasy came on our move-out date. Our movers cancelled 90 minutes before our scheduled slot, leaving us trapped in our own piles of boxes.
After more than three years in the same 500 square feet, every extra minute in the space was gruelling. We were emotionally trapped in quicksand, sinking back into the worst parts of the pandemic. Nowhere to go. Nothing to do. Just us alone in limbo.
The gap between me and my dream spaces never felt wider.
Today there are no scones. We made it out of the condo (phew), but the next steps are paused. We still don’t have a move-in date, and we’re watching our Toronto lives from a distance.
Occasionally, we make the commute from our holding space to events we agreed to before the move.
Currently, I’m hunched over on my in-law’s couch trying to power through this blog. I know that publishing today’s post is the first step in a new Substack era of My Side Piece - one that will inevitably include the new home and, hopefully, many baked goods.
For now, it’s a slog. I’m uninspired and distracted. Getting words down feels like sifting through closed boxes. My thoughts (and my things) are scattered between Burlington and Toronto. If you asked me to find a pair of summer shorts or a better blog topic, I wouldn’t know where to start.
My energy is being used to keep everything together. Ultimately, it’s a losing battle. Moving creates gaps for the little things to escape. Small tokens get lost and jostled in boxes or important emails get forgotten. I’ve completely evaporated from every group chat and text thread.
My mental bandwidth and packing tape can only extend so far.
And yet I still catch myself being precious about packing the most random junk: a university party costume, an umbrella stand, and a broken Papasan chair that’s followed me around since childhood.
Sometimes I think it would be freeing if my stuff got lost on the way to the house. Nothing makes me feel heavier than seeing the number of boxes I’m lugging somewhere new. A city-dwelling Sisyphus.
Online it’s no different. I hesitated to make updates to my landing page and fonts. I remember how proud I was to make my first website. It was the moment I felt like my blog was validated.
As if Squarespace is the ultimate legitimizer.
Switching domains and migrating to Substack felt like both a step forward and a loss. I had to say goodbye to VIP members and old slogans to fit into new templates. There were times when the initial work seemed useless.
To humble myself, I looked back at my first ever My Side Piece email.
The font. The copy. The horror.
What a difference three years can make! I hardly remember how I got from there to here. I’ve been slowly iterating on this blog since its inception. Clearly, it made a difference.
In writing, constant revisions are a given. You can edit forever. One of the hardest parts of running this blog is knowing when it’s time to hit “publish.” Often, I force myself to send before I’m ready.
My Side Piece has been a crash course in learning when “good” is “good enough”. I’ve sent out dozens (if not hundreds) of typos, broken links, and clunky paragraphs. All of them have made me a better writer.
Substack is just the latest - albeit largest - correction in a while.
When it comes to my living situation, I’m tired of always moving and looking for the next place. Part of the fantasy is creating a dream home over time. I’m excited to nest.
While we navigate this messy in-between, there have been moments of immense gratitude. I’ve stopped in the middle of our half-finished kitchen and been in complete disbelief that it’s ours. Despite today’s writing grind, it’s been an absolute joy to create this article in one place (!!!) instead of transcribing from a doc to Mailchimp to the website.
Each day is a step closer to the fantasy - a stable home, a seamless blog, and all my things in one place. Until then, I’m happy to have my scones store-bought.