Hello World
I couldn’t think of a better time to make this first post (cue galaxy-type far far away music or just go read about Mercury retrograde), so here it is. The truth is, I made this Substack over a month ago and I’ve been scared. So I decided to confront why.
Because I’m not a stranger to a blinking cursor on a blank white screen - I’ve been writing (sporadically) online for a few decades now. There’s bits of me scattered all over the internet - as an emo 13-year-old who just had her first blog set up for her by her dad on LiveJournal while she customised the themes on her Geocities page; as a hopeful 17-year-old who gave my heart away before I could truly get to enjoy it myself; as a determined 25-year-old who was set on living my best grown-up, responsible life (hah); as a 32-year-old who decided to begin my journey with therapy even though I couldn’t really pinpoint why.
And now - as a 35-year-old: broken in more ways than I know how myself, but picking up the pieces and figuring out if I really want them to go back into forming the same shape as they once did (spoiler alert: NOPE).
The truth is, 8 months ago my life changed overnight. In ways I didn’t ask for, didn’t expect, didn’t see coming. But I’ve learnt since that I am just one of many with a story like this - so this isn’t about what happened to me or why. It’s about what comes next for me. It’s about channelling all the strength and love that’s come pouring like a waterfall - from people who have come forward from the corners of my past to the new friends I have discovered along the way. Each conversation, interaction and exchange has injected a little bit of courage on days when I couldn’t see past the looming darkness that had consumed me.
If you’re here for drama, I’m not sure you’re going to find it. What I expect you’ll find instead is just a girl, standing in front of a screen, asking it to release her: from a manicured life painted with the palest watercolours into a blank canvas, begging to be filled with the most brilliant & messy strokes of her own making — not tidy or polite, but alive, unfiltered, and entirely hers. A riot of colour where she finally learns that chaos can be beautiful, and freedom isn’t found in perfection, but in the courage to begin again.
Where does one go when the future you once envisioned gets pulled out from under your feet on one random Thursday night? We’ll find out :)