REASONS FOR LIVING with Esmé Weijun Wang

REASONS FOR LIVING with Esmé Weijun Wang

Finding Hope on the Brink

what happens when we step into our healing Journey

Esmé Weijun Wang's avatar
Esmé Weijun Wang
May 12, 2025
∙ Paid
Art by Monica Barengo

Subscribe to receive intimate essays on creativity within limitations, thoughtful reflections that honor both struggle and possibility, and writing prompts that invite you to explore your own unexpected shape. Each newsletter feels like pages from a personal journal shared with a trusted friend. Twice a month, you’ll receive a Reason for Living essay about someone’s reason for living—R.F. Kuang and Jenny Odell have been past guest essayists.

When you become a paid subscriber, you're not just receiving additional content. You'll join our monthly Fireside Chats with remarkable guests and gain access to my complete resource library—tools I've created specifically for writers navigating limitations.

This isn't just another newsletter. It's an invitation to join me in the messy, beautiful work of finding reasons for living—and creating meaningful work from wherever we are.

Lately, I’ve been feeling on the brink of something.

My hope is that I’ll experience a potential return to baseline after over a month stuck in physical exhaustion and abandoned by inspiration. When I sit down to write, I stare at the same pages, trying to rediscover the exhilarating breakthrough I’d achieved immediately before the ER visit that wrecked my baseline—staring at the pages and unable to find even a remnant of the discovery.

Or perhaps the brink is about something else. Next week, I'll head for a retreat designed for women who have experienced childhood sexual abuse. Having applied for the opportunity, I’m still wary of what the experience will be like—in fact, I've already postponed this experience once due to illness. The uncertainty of what awaits is quiet. I hardly think about it because I can’t allow myself to imagine the experience without panicking. Questions flutter around me constantly: Am I truly ready for this experience? Will I return to my nightly nightmares, trapped in the cycle of waking up screaming five to seven times a night? What will the other women be like? Most of all: Will I heal?

User's avatar

Continue reading this post for free, courtesy of Esmé Weijun Wang.

Or purchase a paid subscription.
© 2026 Esmé Weijun Wang · Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start your SubstackGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture