Knowing When To Pull The Plug

Emotional growth lies in the quiet courage behind hard decisions, tucked into the moments when things don't work anymore. You find yourself wrestling the hidden costs of inner conflict, caught between holding on and letting go. Bit by bit, those life transitions mold hard-won self trust into personal boundaries that shape our behind the scenes reality. And the people around us witness the aftermath—the changes in financial security, emotional resilience, or the way we spend our time.

What people don't see is the burden of choosing wisely or the weight of long term thinking. The long nights and early mornings. The stress of sacrifice. The unseen decisions that shift the balance between choosing what supports you and letting go of something you love. For most of the last fourteen years, I've partnered with Draft2Digital to share my books with a wider range of readers, and as a proudly independent author, I'm truly grateful for what that partnership made possible.

But sometimes, stewardship means choosing sustainability and knowing when to walk away from systems that no longer work.

I love writing. I love sharing stories that settle into people's hearts and make themselves at home, and I don't see myself ever walking away from that. But for me, writing sustainably means carefully balancing priorities and juggling the value of access against economic affordability—even when choosing what's best means letting go of what's comfortable.

It's funny how our lives cycle from lesson to lesson, from theme to theme. The operational changes at Draft2Digital feel like echoes of other changes in my life. Places that no longer feel comfortable, people I no longer feel close to. Conversations that forge no bond, moments that demand emotional investment but offer little return. Clutter that devours space but serves no purpose.

I'm looking at life a little differently these days. Reading between the lines, tracing the undercurrents between what is said or done—and what isn't. Lately, I've been taking time to hold everything intentionally. And piece by piece, I'm decluttering every aspect of my life.

Do I really need that app on my phone? Am I actually going to use that item? Is it useful, or is it just another thing to dust? Is that person truly standing in my corner, or are they just wandering around my circle? Is it serving a purpose? Does it teach me something, bring me joy, move me forward? Is it improved by my presence...or is it better left alone?

Sometimes these questions end with me standing in the quiet, my eyes closed, my fingers clutching some trinket enriched by long-ago memories, like the Precious Moments figurine my father gave me when I was a teenager. I trace the lines of her little dress, the texture of her sculpted curls, the tiny bump of her barely-there nose...and I think of the girl I used to be. The one who knew she could survive anything because she'd already overcome so much. The one who could never have anticipated what was coming. 

And I keep the figurine.

Other times, I'm flipping through old notebooks and paperwork, and I pause to breathe through the squeezing in my chest. Because there in some quietly forgotten place is a brightly colored greeting card, and I remember when I got it. I remember where it came from and who gave it to me, and I don't need to open it to remember what it says—but I'll open it anyway. I'll read the words and let my eyes dance over scrawled sentiments no longer felt, soaking in sweet memories soured by time. I'll remember the contour of a beloved face, the texture of skin, the warmth of a laugh.

And when cruelty chases joy from the room, I throw the card away.

It's not always that easy, though. Sometimes it means looking at someone I dearly love and recognizing that the relationship only goes one way. Chill nonchalance settles into emotional distance that wasn't there before, and I can't imagine a life that person isn't part of—but when I'm overjoyed and eager to celebrate, I know who not to call. So I walk carefully through the moments of my life, sometimes holding on simply because I am not yet ready to let go.

Perhaps a part of me fears the empty space I won't be able to ignore when that person no longer stands in it. Perhaps somewhere in my heart, shame and relief are still at war. Learning to make hard choices is rarely a good time...so how is it that choosing what supports you brings the kind of peace that falls like rain on parched soil?

Why is it that letting go of treasured things only seems hard in the moment, before the thing is gone and solitude fills the vacancy?

Maybe it's because we don’t realize how much weight we’ve been carrying until we finally set something down. Maybe it's because we spend so long convincing ourselves that holding on is safer. Or maybe what we’re really afraid of isn’t the loss itself, but the silence that follows. The space where something used to be—the place where we decide, all over again, what we’re willing to carry forward.

Little by little, I’m learning that empty space can be celebrated rather than feared, and in that space, I’m starting to see the difference between what I can carry…and what I actually should. Sometimes moments that feel like loss are actually invitations to better, more intentional stewardship. And it's only as we learn to love those empty spaces that we begin to recognize what truly belongs.

*****

None of us like making difficult choices. We shift from when and where to how and why. We agonize over the risk of making decisions that disappoint other people. And when we're comfortable with how things are, it's tempting to wonder why letting go is necessary in the first place. But holding onto a rope that's burning the skin off your hands seems silly when your feet are firmly planted on the ground, doesn't it?

For the past several years, I’ve proudly made my books available through both Amazon and wider distribution platforms like Draft2Digital. I liked the idea of meeting readers where they were, and I believe accessibility is part of what makes independent publishing so powerful—but with recent changes in how those systems operate, I’ve had to take a closer look at what's actually sustainable for me as an author. And after a lot of consideration, I’ve decided to move back into Amazon exclusivity for the foreseeable future.

I know that pulling the plug on my partnership with Draft2Digital means some readers will be meeting my stories and characters in a different way than before. But I also believe that with this shift toward creative stability, my writing—and by extension, my readers—will be met with better stewardship and intentionality going forward.

And I'm not rejecting wide distribution in principle. If you've read my work on other platforms before, please know I am genuinely grateful you found me there. It's just time to gauge the pros and cons, and to recognize what I can realistically maintain while protecting the time, energy, and focus it takes to keep writing.

If you found me on Amazon and followed from there, nothing changes for you, and I'm just as thankful for the time and emotion you invest in my books. It is, after all, the reader who makes a story complete.

At the end of the day, I’ll still be right here, doing what I’ve always done. Writing bold stories about resilience. Crafting characters right in the middle of healing. And through it all, encouraging you to...

It's normal to feel like life is too hectic, but this is a problem with a simple answer: show up, streamline, and simplify. One way I'm doing this? I'm looking more closely at what I take in during the day. No more mindless scrolling. So if you're working on that too, let me invite you to my Substack roundup—it's a once-weekly email that gives you links to all the best of my content, writing updates, sneak peeks at my life behind the scenes, and more!