In December 2019, I announced that I was back on the blog. Then 2020 happened, and in the past 8 months I’ve hardly posted once a month, mostly to raise funds to stay housed. I’m incredibly grateful to everyone for helping us so far and for your continued efforts to share and donate to our fundraisers, and in making pledges on Patreon.

I haven’t stopped writing, but I have needed to walk away from the memoir for a bit. I’ve been (still, slowly) working through a book of prompts for my journal. For the past few weeks I’ve also been practicing with writing fiction, with the help of someone more experienced in the craft. I think if I was to return to the blog, I would need to start making short posts of what’s on my mind instead of trying to demand perfection in researched essays from myself.

Who am I convincing with all this information I’ve gathered about the economy, injustice, and trauma? I wonder and I am divided between all the things I want to write, and everything I definitely don’t want to write.

What I don’t want to write is the stuff that leaves me exhausted for days afterward to squeeze out. It’s the memories that haunt me most, the ones that leave me with nightmares and other symptoms of complex PTSD. It is difficult to recollect the life I left behind, and because I so often try to revisit it out of a commitment to finish this memoir, it feels sometimes as if I haven’t left it behind at all.

What I do want to write is expansive – stories, allegories about religion and fantastical science fiction and fantasy, and nonfiction books of reflections on various subjects. Maybe even music.

I must be patient with myself – I’m not yet 30 and many great authors didn’t finish their memoirs until they were twice my age or older. I don’t want to limit myself to only focusing on one project because I’m afraid of what I’ll miss out on creating and enjoying in the time it takes to finish my book.

Times are perilous and I have much to say. I will be trying to blog more often, but this time in short bursts. I hope you enjoy whatever thoughts land here.