Welcome to can’t relate, a newsletter from me, Maria Del Russo, that I write biweekly on Fridays. If you were sent this newsletter by a friend (such an excellent friend) or clicked through this link via my social channels, then you can also subscribe by clicking below.
And if you really like what you read, you can leave me a tip in my nifty digital tip jar.
xx MDR
I started writing about myself way back in January 2016; Back when we thought that Hillary was a shoe-in for the White House and when the only time you heard the term “omicron” was when you met a drunk, former sorority sister rambling about rush weeks past after too many tequilas.
If memory serves, it was this story that sealed my fate — a super earnest essay about my experience using an anti-inflammation diet to get my acne under control. After that, it was off to the races. My life was an open experiment. This was at the peak of “I Tried This Trend…And This Is What Happened” content on the internet, so I kept trying things — I drank a gallon of water every day for 30 days, I wore a different shade of lipstick every day, and I even gave up dairy for a long, harrowing month.
Eventually, my editors gave me a dating column, and I wrote about what I saw as the can’t-be-anything-worse state of being single at 26. (Oh, Maria, you sweet summer child.) And that’s when things really took off.
Since then, a good chunk of my life has been for public consumption. This isn’t unique in a world where so many of us are told we need a social media “brand.” (How many times have you forced your long-suffering BFF to take 45 photos of you in order to get the perfect one for the ‘gram. BE HONEST!) But in the early days of my column, and in the years after my layoff, I lived to turn my life into stories.
But lately, it’s been feeling kind shitty, to be honest. It’s probably because I’m uniquely bad at balancing, but I have an inkling that I’m not the only person struggling with this at the moment. So many of the writers and influencers who are around my age seem to be dealing with a similar feeling of oversharing burnout. I’ve read so many newsletters and think pieces and listened to dozens of podcasts where women (and it *is* mostly people who identify as women, which is a whole other subject for a whole other newsletter) my age are tired of the content crush. Why can’t we just post to Instagram without worrying if it’s “on brand”? How do I continue to be successful if the audience I’ve cultivated expects one thing, but I don’t want to do or be that thing anymore? What does success even mean now?
We’ve all become so habituated to worrying about how a thing will be received before we even put it out there. For me, it’s started to feel like a real creativity suck. I’m tired of second-guessing whether something will perform. I don’t even want to think about the writing that I do outside of work in terms of performance. I just want to do it.
That’s what I’ve been kicking around for the past couple of weeks, because here’s the thing I’ve come to realize: I don’t want to write about my own relationships anymore. I want to write about my life, but not the inner workings of the connections that I make. I don’t want to expect the people around me to be okay with having their lives mined so that I can email blast it out. I’m tired of being an open, raw nerve, experiencing life so I can pass the stories on to other people. I don’t want to be the cautionary tale. I want to post pictures of whatever the fuck I want to my Instagram and not worry about whether it aligns with the carefully constructed brand I’ve made for myself.
I just want to live without worrying how it will be consumed by my followers, and I also don’t want the pressure to do one specific thing. I want to be able to do something for a season and then move on from it. That’s what feels good to me at the moment, and I want the freedom to do whatever the fuck I want, okay!!
There is so much good happening in my life at the moment. Some I want to share. Other things I don’t. And some things I shouldn’t — and that’s okay. The pressure to weigh what I should and shouldn’t put out there has been difficult for the past year. So I’m opting out — kind of.
So you may be thinking “this is all well and good, Maria, but what does this mean, tangibly?” Well, here’s what I’m thinking:
Since I’ve become less and less interested in writing about relationships, I’m going to start to wind down can’t relate. But I’m not going to be going anywhere for long. I’ll be launching a new newsletter in the coming weeks that will be a bit more general — and it will continue to be on this feed, so you won’t even have to re-subscribe to keep up. (Look at me, making your lives easier.) I’ll be able to share recipes, and the occasional essay, and shopping recs, and an advice column, and all of the good shit I want to do. It will be free, but I’ve set up a PayPal tip jar where you can contribute whatever you want to support.
This is what feels good right now, and I hope that you all will follow along with me. I may go quiet on here for the next couple of weeks while I work to launch the newness, but once I do, you’ll get an email to let you know.
So here we are, at what may be the end of my public private life. I think I had a good run. But I’m very excited for the next step, wherever it may take me
xx MDR
Like what you just read? Feel free to get a little tipsy.
This is incredible! You actually inspired me to start a substack newsletter and I was worried I was niche-ing down to much but I've found I've ended up writing whatever the hell I want. This is my space to write what I want to write and not be constricted to a "brand idea" so thank you for inspiring me and I can't wait to see what comes next in the new newsletter!
Cool Maria that you are reinventing your life.