I’m Back… and better than before?

I’m back!

I feel like I’ve lived an entire lifetime in the time I’ve been away from writing.

I will write about my experiences in the past few years – maybe not all of it, but some of it – eventually. 

The overview, to make a long long long story as short as possible, is this:

2020 was a nightmare for me. From the bottom of my heart, that’s not an exaggeration to any degree. 

I suffered so much loss (financial, familial, personal) and fear. I felt my own mortality as a reality for the first time, and I found myself in the pandemic-era, eerie emergency room not once but 3 times. 

One of the scariest and most confusing lowlights was when I experienced Bell’s palsy, a complete paralysis of the right side of my face (in the height of lockdown and the pandemic) in addition to intense, stabbing pain in my facial nerve – affecting my sight, communication, eating, and so much more – putting my profession and life as I know it at risk. 

Eventually, thank the Universe (and doctors, medication, physical therapy, and Netflix!), I recovered almost entirely.

But still, I found myself in the darkest place of my life. I lost hope, too many times. I began to believe that I didn’t deserve better. I made choices that were not in line with who I really am. I surrounded myself with people who didn’t really care about me, and definitely did not support me on my path to my best self. I’m not sure which came first, but these bad choices continually reinforced each other.

That chapter of my life is closed – though it took so much concentrated effort, and didn’t happen instantaneously…

I did find hope again. I found the strength to make changes. I gradually crawled my way back to the light, to my own light. A lot of it was because I found my way back to my truest and most supportive friends – people who believed in me from the beginning, and never gave up on me… even when I gave up on myself. 

I must admit, not begrudgingly, but thankfully, that my father was right: it truly is the people we choose to have closest to us who determine who we are. No exaggeration there. I feel it in my bones, I feel it in my soul.

With the support of the people who love me most, I made very hard and sometimes painful (but right and true) decisions. I pulled myself out of the hole I had participated in digging for myself. I felt like I was clawing my way out most of the time, and like I was carrying the weight of all my bad decisions, uphill. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done – and I have never been more grateful to my former self.

2020 was a nightmare. But 2021 has been like a dream. And if it actually is a dream, don’t wake me up. This is by far the happiest, healthiest, and most myself that I’ve EVER been.

I can’t wait for the future. I know there will be hard moments, but now I am more trusting than ever in my ability to come back to the light.

And apparently, to come back to myself, and to come back to this blog.

I have never been a braver, more authentic, or stronger version of myself. My life has never felt more true or more beautiful.

Tomorrow is my 33rd birthday, and I already know it will be the best yet. A big part of this? Because I met the man I wrote this letter to… or I should say, re-met… but more on that, later.