The Post-Launch Blues
By Shigeko Ito
I went for a walk-and-talk the other day around Seattle’s Green Lake with an author friend whose debut memoir comes out this fall. After the rain teased on and off that morning, the clouds opened, and a bit of sun broke through. The air felt mild and fresh, a brief respite mirroring how I hoped to feel inside, during and after our chat.
Halfway into our walk, she reminded me that I’ve “given birth” three times: first to my doctoral dissertation, then to my actual human baby, and now to my legacy memoir. I was struck by her insight: she was right. I’ve gone through that cycle three times. The post-dissertation slump hit me hard. Instead of celebrating the end of a long, arduous road, I felt a loss of purpose and direction. Soon after came my son—pure love and exhilaration, yes, but relentless obstacles and sleep deprivation coupled with my hypervigilance kept me in survival mode. The temporary elation, that halo effect, could last only so long. I was too focused on him to even notice my postpartum depression symptoms until much later. Now, with my book baby, it feels like a blend of postpartum blues and empty nest happening at the same time. Maybe I’m just more susceptible to this cycle than others.
I admit, as a first-time author, I was quite naïve about the whole book-publishing business, never expecting it to be so astonishingly complex and labor-intensive. Each phase came with its own challenges: writing, revising, polishing; developmental assessments and line edits to get the manuscript in tip-top shape; a yearlong agent search; finding the right publisher; then yet more rounds of revision, integrating feedback. After that came copyediting and proofreading, each requiring another layer of fine-tuning before stepping into an entirely different terrain of publicity and marketing. By the time the book launched, I felt fried and drained, like I’d just finished a brutal decathlon for which I hadn’t trained.
I’ve been having very vivid dreams lately and shared two of them with my walking buddy. One was about a Haniwa warrior—an ancient clay figurine placed along the burial sites of powerful rulers during Japan’s Kofun period, roughly between 400 and 700 AD. I had even forgotten what it was called because I hadn’t thought about it since high school Japanese history class. When I woke up, I immediately looked it up and learned that it symbolizes a vessel of memory and legacy. That seemed to explain the strange peace I felt upon waking, a quiet sense of completion after sending my book into the world.
Yet the other dream showed the opposite. It was about a little kitten and a large pale-yellow snake surrounded by a group of people. I watched from a distance, uneasy, whispering, “Don’t bite that snake.” Soon I ran away, and the kitten followed me. I shut myself and the kitten in a room, feeling safe for a moment, until the snake’s head appeared through the space under the door. I woke up shaken, realizing that no matter how far I try to escape from fear, it manages to follow—quiet but persistent.
These two dreams capture the ongoing tension inside me: one part of me aligned with my higher self and mission-driven purpose, and the other still haunted by comparison and self-doubt. Growing up with attachment wounds in Japan’s conformity-driven culture primed me to seek approval and external validation. That old wiring still echoes beneath apparent success, tugging me between authenticity and the urge to live up to others’ expectations. It’s an exhausting pattern, pulling me away from my truest self.
As I enter this post-launch “Now what?” phase, I’m realizing that the work doesn’t end when the book is out in the world. It simply shifts into a different mode: sustaining the momentum while protecting the soul of my book. If I’m not grounded, uncertainty, insecurity, and self-doubt can creep back in very easily, like that quiet but persistent snake that keeps circling back, stealing joy when I least expect it.
My friend asked if I would write another book. I said, “Oh, hell no—giving birth three times is enough.” She laughed, and I knew she understood what I meant. I laughed too, now from a profound sense of completion, a job well done with no regrets. As we parted, the sun shone brightly, the clouds having lifted, and a lightness filled my heart.
Shigeko Ito grew up in Japan and immigrated to the U.S. for higher education, earning a PhD in Education from Stanford University. Drawing on cross-cultural experience and academic insight, she explores intergenerational trauma, the enduring impact of childhood emotional neglect, and healing in her debut memoir, The Pond Beyond the Forest: Reflections on Childhood Trauma and Motherhood (She Writes Press, 2025). A chapter was a semifinalist in the 2025 Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards. She worked at Montessori and other preschools and now lives in Seattle with her husband and their beloved animals.