Breaking the Habit

A forced exercise in overcoming insecurity.

View along TX-118

It’s been several months since I last posted writing on Substack. Frankly, I’ve been in a rut. So far as my writing is concerned.

Life this year has been spent between two countries. Again. The start of 2025 found me living back in the UK but feeling restless. The move back to my homeland was made in the hopes of creating new memories. Starting new chapters. Finding general newness. But moving back to your homeland after seven years spent building an entirely independent life for yourself in a new country comes at a cost. The saying is true: You can’t go home again.

Despite the familiarity of the country, I felt like a stranger moonlighting as a native. Reconnecting with friends, family, and the country that raised me felt shallow. As though I had missed out on too many changes and was now simply cast as an observer of the lives going on around me. Much remained the same. The home I grew up in still stood. The village green, pubs, telephone box, and fields of cows remained. London still hummed with its multitude of energies. Some good, some bad. The trains still ran - though with more delays.

A semblance of routine developed. Life continued to move. But the country just didn’t feel like home anymore. And so a desire to return to the US took root. A desire to return to wide open spaces, the grandeur of immense landscapes, the freewheeling nature of time, where at a moment’s notice you could be in your vehicle and away on the highways somewhere new where being a stranger often aided the experience instead of encumbering it. America gave me space to wander and explore ideas more freely than I had ever felt before first moving there at the end of 2016.

So back again. Over the sea in an airplane to Texas. A drive from Austin to the outskirts of Kaufman, a small town roughly thirty miles south east of Dallas. A week back-and-forth across the country to shop for vehicles and check in on new apartment leases. Then the final push. All belongings loaded into a U-Haul ridden across state lines to a new life in Colorado.

We’re coming up on five months since settling; into new jobs, new routines, new lives. Writing returned again after a hiatus during the time in the UK, where there felt to be too much going on to ever produce anything of note besides drunken prose on late train rides home and pre-dawn drafts over coffee at a kitchen table I ate at as a child. Now an adult. Conflicted.

Border Co. began in England. An outlet for the many pieces of writing compiled driving across America on different occasions between 2016 and 2023. Perhaps its origins were an act of mourning. A way to process the departure from a life that once felt like an exciting new beginning. There was a part of me that felt returning to England was an act of defeat. A time to turn home and take stock of where life was going, or not going, and decide on what was next. At the time, Border Co. was envisioned to be an outlet for writing and collaborations, reaching out to makers to create capsule collections of products suited to the rambling life on the road I’d embraced through much of my time in the US. This idea was outlined in the first post of this Substack, The Crossing: Welcome to Border Co. and expanded on in The List: Collaborations at Border Co.

But as time’s gone on, I’ve accepted I have no interest in pushing more products out into the world. No matter how worthy their intentions. Overconsumption is a scourge of our time and there’s something inauthentic about playing a part in hocking wares for personal fulfillment. There are many, many excellent independent makers out there already. Go out and find them. Support them. Border Co. will remain the name of this Substack, speaking to the fulfillment found crossing new landscapes, hearing new stories, and seeking to understand my place in all of it. But the focus now will solely be on producing writing under this name.

Moving to Colorado has opened up another window to writing, dedicating my free time to it all over again since the first major rediscovery that happened in 2020. But that rekindling also brings confusion on where this creative outlet has a home. It’s been a slow process getting back in the saddle and submitting work to publications. By focusing on that instead of regular posts on Substack, the rhythm of posts on Border Co. has been thrown and I’m left wondering what matters most. I think it’s to just keep writing; here, out in the world, late night, early morning. Whenever and wherever possible, regardless of if it’s any good or not.

Anxiety over every technicality of grammar, sentence structure, punctuation, and spelling has often encumbered my willingness to share more work. Fearing the reader will seek out the imperfections rather than any meaning contained within. This piece was written as an act to break a habit. Of lethargy. Of tentativeness. Of insecurity. Perhaps it’s time to embrace judgement. Our accessible outlets for sharing creativity (social media and other online networks) often feel like a popularity contest, where your work has to arrive fully formed, perfect, and marketable to a mass audience. That in itself deters many from sharing more. Failing to see that your work resonates can be debilitating.

So all this is to say: if you’re still here, your readership is most appreciated.

To any other writers struggling to find their path. Just spit it out for yourself and keep moving forward.

Be authentic.

I’ll try to do the same.