Right Back Where I Started (but better)
I took a break from posting here.
For once, it didn't fall through the cracks; it was an intentional hiatus. I found myself floundering for the direction of this blog. I felt like I was all over the map: politics, mental health, how hard it is to write a novel, a story from my childhood about bricks. Why am I doing this? I wondered. What is this blog's purpose? I was craving a more direct path but also resisting one; focusing on just one thing always gets old for me.
As I thought about it over the months I haven't written here, I wandered far and wide. As G.K. Chesterton once wrote:
There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay there. The other is to walk round the whole world till we come back to the same place ...
This blog has never had a theme.
But in moseying around out in the world, I recalled that was intentional -- those stories, challenges, politics and pressures are all tied together by something. I remembered that when I started this blog, I had a goal beyond spewing my brain antics du jour.
The point was to connect with other people, to talk about the things we don't discuss when we run into each other in the frozen food section of the grocery store and chat about the kids and how hot it (still) is. Sometimes those things are funny stories that take more than thirty seconds to tell. Sometimes it's racism, depression or perimenopause.
I tell everything through a personal lens because I want people to feel less alone in their struggles.
I want to feel less alone. And one thing I've finally learned as an adult is if I feel something, am sad, angry or confused about something, then there are ALWAYS other people out there feeling it, too.
I wandered out the front door of this blog several months ago in a quest to find a more cohesive theme for it, and having explored, I've marched in the back door with renewed dedication and conviction to the original purpose: to be honest about the things we tend to gloss over, to help all of us realize we're not alone in our feelings. AND those feelings are worth examining sometimes.
Feelings are not good or bad. They are signposts for the things we care about.
?
I'm back.
It's a blog about feelings and why we feel them. It's a blog about the stories that take time to tell. It's a blog about facing the uncomfortable things in life and using them to learn and grow. So stay tuned because I'm doubling down on honesty. My next post (and possibly several, since it feels like a huge topic) is going to be about the hysterectomy I had a week ago.
See you soon,
April