Happy 201 and more

Hello friends.

To say “it’s been a while” would be at minimum, disingenuous. I feel like I should begin more along the lines of “it’s been more than two years since my last confession”. As I sit here drinking my morning coffee on an average Sunday, please understand that I’ve never forgotten about you, nor have I abandoned writing.

It’s been hard, these last two years, to do much of anything outside of survival mode. However, I’ve been taking a class recently on self empowerment, and while digging deep into my core values, writing was quietly waiting for me to pick it back up. Since I recognized this, I’ve gained momentum from starting a collaborative project with my mom. She was visiting us from the other side of the country and we had a finite amount of time to start and made excellent headway. But it felt good to sort of stretch my legs, writing with her, while remembering how much I love this form of communication. I’ve picked up journaling once again, and now, I’m back here.

Writing has been therapeutic in many ways, but also truly difficult. There are a myriad of thoughts, feelings, and unknowns that have prevented me from coming back here, at least with regularity, for more than 5 years. I’ve existed, but struggled to live fully, due to unprocessed or buried traumas. I’ve barely scratched the surface of sorting through all that, but I’m also done feeling stuck. Life has thrown some wild pitches, and I keep swinging for the fence. I’m just not connecting with the ball and I’m not going to chase after it.

Since the closure of my business, separation and divorce from my second husband, I’ve moved across the country, moved houses several times, endured a lengthy and languishing pandemic and the after affects thereof, witnessed widespread protesting and violence against police brutality, against our own nation’s capital, against wars and genocide, against each other for our views, faiths, and political leanings. I’ve also had opportunities to learn and grow, become closer with my family, get married and buy a home with my husband, discover unknown depths of my capacity to love, support and cherish moments with my kids (bio and step), explore new communities and meet people who will be lifelong friends, drive long, introspective distances, and survive moments I genuinely believed would have been my last. A whole lot has happened in a little over 5 years.

We’ve all been collectively living through unprecedented times. We’ve all been dragging our asses through history in the making. It’s been real wild, and I think as much as our kids have struggled and lost during all of this, the adults carrying this weight have suffered greatly more than we realize. We are carrying the traumas of our own experiences and that of our kids (even if they’re not biologically yours, most of us have young ones in our lives).

All of this is to recap why I’ve been a ghost. I haven’t felt like I had something meaningful to contribute to the narrative, since there’s been so much fucking noise surrounding us. I’m simply trying to survive myself, with a swirling inside my brain hole. It’s been like a blender in there. Now, it’s a shit smoothie and I’m ready to pour it out. Strap in, kids. I am planning great things and will be back soon, and more regularly. I’m motivated and falling back in love with words, after being estranged for so very long.

Please subscribe if you’re interested in keeping up because I’ll be making some announcements in the coming weeks/months. Thank you for reading and I’ll catch you on the flip side (if you’re young, you probably don’t know that reference- look it up). Finally, this is my 201st post to the page. 🎉