i’m learning how to hang out again

how does one hang???

am I still cool🥺

it feels weird to even type that. because anyone who knows me knows i’m the loud one. the funny one. the one who’s always on. that’s the version of me people expect.

but here’s what they don’t see. for the last eight months i haven’t been able to have a normal hangout. not a real one.

i’ve felt like a slave in corporate america for years. twelve hours in front of a computer. sixteen on the bad days. my body learned that rhythm so deep that even now, two weeks out, free, i still reach for the laptop like it’s a limb i can’t put down. the job is gone but the wiring is still here.

last night my friend london came over. he’s one of the few people i actually want to spend intentional time with. the kind of person where i don’t want to be half on my phone, half somewhere else. so i invited him over and cooked dinner. and i’ll be honest about why. if i’d ordered out, i knew i’d use the wait as an excuse to open my laptop “just for a second.” cooking was a trick i played on myself to stay inside my own life.

that’s where i’m at. i have to train myself to hang out. to sit with someone and just be there. i literally caught myself thinking, bitch, how do you hang out? how does a person do this normally?

it’s insane to me. and it’s kind of exciting too.

because i’ve felt the other side. back in december i got two weeks off and i remember how free i felt. i only worked when i wanted to. i made content because i wanted to, over fifteen videos, five podcasts. and i still felt rested. that was the whole thing. i could do this. one day on content, one day on product, one day on sales. i could build a life that didn’t eat me alive.

i told myself back then, i want to feel like this again.

and now i have it. the time is actually mine. but the feeling doesn’t just show up because the calendar opened up. i have to relearn it. my nervous system is still catching up. i can feel my cortisol coming down, slow. feel my body remembering what it’s like to not be braced for the next thing.

i’m also learning i don’t have to invent a brand new idea every day to be worth anything. most of the work is distribution. like 80 percent. the product is maybe 20, and most of that should just be feedback and iteration. it doesn’t always have to be a new idea. it should be getting people to do the thing i want them to do, faster. all that constant inventing was never really the point. i just thought it was, because i never sat still long enough to know the difference.

here’s the part nobody tells you. freedom isn’t only a circumstance. it’s a mentality. you can be handed all the open time in the world and still not feel free, because your body doesn’t believe it yet.

so that’s what i’m doing now. cooking dinner for a friend. letting the laptop stay shut. letting myself be happy again without earning it first.

i’m learning how to be free.

— bree