bittersweet

Emma Chamberlain (0:00)

Hey, hi, how are you?

Yeah, I am feeling a bit awkward today, if I'm being honest, because I have to sit you down and have a serious conversation with you today. That's really what it feels like. Jokes aside, it literally feels like I'm sitting down a friend to have a serious conversation. And that's never fun. Yes, it can be productive and healthy and beautiful, but that doesn't mean it's easy. That doesn't mean it's fun. Hell, it's never fun.

Today, I'm going to be giving you some news that I consider to be bittersweet. For those of you who enjoy anything goes, it might be shitty news. For those of you who hate anything goes, oh my God, this is going to be your favorite episode I ever make. In fact, turn it up. Turn it up. You're going to love this one.

Let's just rip off the bandaid. Okay. Let's stop beating around the bush. I am taking a little podcast break. Okay. Yep.

Taking a little podcast break. Now let's rip the bandaid all the way off because I was just ripping it halfway off. Let's rip it all the way off now. I don't know how long the break is going to be. I wish I had answers for you. I don't have answers for you. I'm taking an indefinite podcast break. Now I know you're thinking, Emma, that means quitting. That means you're done forever. Emma, where did this come from? This is coming out of left field. I feel betrayed by you. Fuck you. You're a fucking bitch. You suck. Go fuck yourself.

Go into the backyard and beat yourself up. You're a bitch and you suck, and I'm unsubscribing and I'm blocking you, and you suck.

Honestly, if you feel that way about this snooze that I just gave you, I take that as a compliment because the fact that you enjoy this show enough to be mad at me is actually really nice. But yes, okay. I understand all of these feelings if you're feeling this way. I also can't tell if I'm like, am I being too self-important? Like does no one even give a fuck? You know what I mean? Am I like, okay, you guys, let's rip off the bandaid with this bad news. I'm taking a podcast break and everyone's like, okay.

Okay, all good. See you later. Don't care. I don't know. But sometimes when I speak about myself or what I do in this way to the audience, I'm like, wait, am I completely delusional and no one really cares? And I'm like, oh, I hope you're not mad at me that I'm doing. And then like everyone's like, yeah, no one's mad. No one cares. Well, just assuming that there's one person out there that is maybe a bit bummed by this news, I get it. It did kind of come out of left field. However, it has been something I've been ruminating on for a while now and been avoiding, but I ultimately had sort of an aha moment about a month ago, where I realized it was time to do this. And once I knew that I needed to do it, it was like, okay, I gotta do it. And I consider this episode, okay, that I'm making right now to be bittersweet. I don't think it's sad, because I actually feel really inspired by this decision.

It's not like I'm making this decision because I'm feeling really down in the dumps, I'm feeling really bummed out, I'm feeling really burnt out. I'm making this decision because I know it's time to grow and evolve and re-structure. Go back to the drawing board career-wise for me. And that's really scary, because when something's doing well, when something's working, it is not necessarily intuitive to say, okay, now I'm going to take a break and go back to the drawing board. You know, it's not intuitive. It's intuitive to just continue. However, in my soul, and I wish I could explain it, but I can't. In my soul, I woke up one day, and I knew that I needed to go back to the drawing board because I knew that the way I was doing this podcast, the way that I was not even beyond this podcast, the way that I was structuring my work life was not working for me. And it's up to me to step back, make necessary changes, and then reenter. And here's the thing. I'm not like disappearing off of the internet. The thing is with the podcast is that the podcast is a scheduled thing, right? Whereas everything else is not. So that's why it feels necessary to come here and say, taking a podcast break. I'm not doing that with anything else and I've never done that with anything else in the past because it hasn't been on as rigid of a schedule. But going back to what I was saying, this is a bittersweet episode in my opinion because it's, I'm not making this decision from a place of weakness, of sadness. It's not coming from a place of burnout. It's coming from a place of excitement, inspiration, and the desire to restructure things in a way that will actually allow me to create more of the things I want to create. Because I've always been somebody that likes to do everything myself.