It’s been a long time since I’ve written.
A really long time.
So long, in fact, that I couldn’t remember my login info for a while and it took me about 10 tries to finally get into this thing.
It’s not that I haven’t had ideas, or things to say, or stories to report. Mostly, it’s that my life was turned on its head, and I didn’t know how to write in this blog and pretend that things were fine – trying to be upbeat – when for a couple of years, things really weren’t fine at all.
I finally feel like emotionally I have started to resurface, and as a result, maybe I could try this again.
But before I start on with the eventual warm-and-fuzzy stories that I’m so fond of, I suppose a rationale for my silence is required.
I am 29 years old, and two years ago in September, I got divorced. I stopped writing because I didn’t know how to write – knowing that family in various forms would be reading – and act like that wasn’t going on (or that I wasn’t massively affected by it). I also don’t particularly like to whine in the form of writing, and so I needed to get past my heavy emo phase in order to be able to discuss it without sounding like…well…a whiner. Life was hard for what felt like forever after that. And when everything around you feels really really hard, incidentally, it’s hard to write and not feel like you are perpetually complaining.
This year, 2016, is going to be a good year. The reason I know that is because it’s the first time in quite some time that I’ve felt like I have my feet solidly under me. I haven’t moved in a year, I can pay every last one of my bills, and though there isn’t a ton left over, there’s still at least a little left over. I have a car that works consistently. I bought a bike and subsequently inherited a fun hobby. I no longer feel like a mess of a human being. Maybe I have finally reached ‘adult’ status? To be honest, does anyone every fully feel like a grown-up though?
Now that things have settled in my life externally, there is an enormous amount of internal shifting that has been occurring. For example, the recent realization that though I am close to 30, I have no idea what I want to do with my life. This is a terrifying concept to have bubble to consciousness when you’ve spent years pursuing education in a very specific field and acquired some debt.
It’s not that I don’t love my work. I do. But for those of you who may not be familiar with my profession of choice, it can be exhausting to say the least. I am the director of a shelter for runaway and homeless youth, and I’ve been with the shelter (in different roles) for several years now. And after years of working in a crisis-based, advocacy-centered, not-for-profit agency…well…you get a little tired. So tired in fact, that I’ve recently even toyed with the idea of leaving the social work sector altogether, for a bit of a mental health break. I don’t know that I actually will, but I completely understand now how professionals I have known over the years could abruptly quit their jobs to go work for a bank (no offense against you bankers out there).
I’ve lived in my current town in upstate NY for 11 years now, which is the longest I’ve ever lived anywhere. I’ve got itchy feet, and frankly, I’m not sure what to do with them.
So with the bad couple of years finally came some good, but it’s also come with some shifting that I was not expecting.
With that internal and external shift, may come some shifting of this blog. Doing life as a single mom changes some of the way a person goes about the day-to-day, so subsequently, I imagine it will affect my writing. But, I realized that I had undeniable writers-block because I was not ready to address the elephant in the room, which is that my life has massively changed in a way that could not – for me – avoid mention. So apologies, dear readers, for my sabbatical.
Maybe now I can revisit this writing thing again.
Cheers.
Baby / Mama 