a long time coming...

I've written this all down in my head at least a hundred times. Maybe two hundred. A thousand, really. But the right words have been hard to catch and keep on the page... as soon as a few sentences make themselves comfortable and settle in, new words and phrases barge their way in. 

I'm hoping I can find some words that feel a bit more evergreen in meaning, today. I might not, though, and that's fine too. 

A beautiful thing about humanity is that we grow, we change, we learn, and we evolve. Some people find that terrifying and run screaming in the other direction. I've been there. We all have. But for the most part, I dig it. Change tends to mean something different on the other side, and as a forever member of "grass is greener" society for people who like to make bad choices, I just love to get a glance and a taste of what that other side is. 

I have stayed away from this blog for awhile now, knowing that some of my posts have pushed out into the world ideas and thinking that I no longer want to associate myself with. I have struggled with my mental health for such a long time that the words that fill these many, many blog posts are, at times,  rattled with glimpses (and sometimes very long stares at) backwards, wrong, and very, very unhealthy ways of thinking. Some of the most egregious I removed (the toxic diet culture bullshit that went with the "angry carbs" post - as I would not want any human, especially not a child desperate for affirmation in their own beautiful body, stumbling upon that and taking it for what it wasn't), but for the most part I am letting it stand. Letting my words sit in the world as is as a testament to my own ability to grow, and change, and own that evolution as the most important thing about me, about humanity. Our ability to feel, fail, and do better. 

In the three years that have lapsed since I last took to these streets I have grown and evolved in ways I could not have imagined. My brain, my body, my heart, my soul, my spirit… all of it. It has been such a gift, so freeing, and yet at time equally a burden and a challenge. 

And, I’m still growing. Still learning. Still seeking answers to the way the world works and how on earth I’m supposed to exist inside of that system. It’s an adventure. I also know that if I attempt to share all of the chaotic thoughts and wonderings and insights that have spun around and through my head since I last posted here this would go on so long I’d never actually stop. I’d never hit publish. 

And, through all my shortcomings and failures one thing that has never ceased to be true is that putting words to paper and sending them out into the world is one way my brain and heart connect - with each other, with me, with others. It’s a form of connection I cannot produce or replicate through any other medium. It heals and puts my body to rest.

It is, in fact, the only thing that puts my body and spirit to rest. It does what running marathons and the longest walks on earth cannot do. So I will write. What has been only sporadic for the last three years has become a daily habit in recent weeks… I’m so full of words and thoughts that they are just spilling out of me and I’m just trying to catch them. 

I’ll catch some of them here. Some days these words wear the hat of a poem, some days they they wear the hat of the stream of consciousness writing that I grew familiar with writing this blog. But they keep showing up, and as such, so will I. It will take time to unravel it all, but I’ll try.