So… 2016 is finally almost over. I know, right?
I’ve been pretty quiet on the blogging front lately, but I’m okay.
I finally got my dream job doing the journalism things at a local newspaper. When I finish writing every day, I don’t always want to go home and write more.
But there’s more.
I’ve been healing in these last three months. Usually fall is my worst season and the darkness frosts my spirit, numbing me slowly for winter. Not this time. In October, I chose not to hide anymore, giving childhood secrets a voice, stripping away shame, feeling for hope behind my fear. I’m in therapy again for the fourth time, but this time I hit roots.
I stopped hiding.
One of my friends in college used to be angry that I needed to return to the same things over and over to get better. This pattern didn’t look like progress to her.
She didn’t understand that healing is like a spiral staircase or onion layers for some people. You have to trace back over and over, feeling the pain deeper each time, before your healing is authentic.
I don’t want to pretend to be better. I want to get well.
So I haven’t stopped blogging. I just took a break. Now I’m overflowing so many things I want to say that I don’t have words for yet, but I’m finding them.
So while 2016 has been kind of horrible on so many levels, it’s been a good year for me as a human. I wasn’t sure if I would survive 2015, to be honest. I didn’t say a lot about it publicly, but 2015 was a terrible year.
But I kept living.
I’m not a hobo anymore. I have a home. I am safe. I am loved.
And I want to share with you all about all of these things, as I feel out my own voice even more honestly and clearly.
It was time for a new blog design, so once again, here’s a screenshot of the old design and the history of how my blog has looked since 2010.
To a new year, my friends, with daring hope.
Eleanor Writes Things 