Back Home

In June, I moved back to Media, PA.  The place that prides itself as being "Everybody’s Hometown" is mine once again.  And I couldn't be happier about it.

I've thought a lot about what I would write about this transition; in fact, before leaving Boston, I tried to write a little reflection of my time there.  

The first lines I wrote were:

The last three years were among the worst of my life.

This is coming from a girl who spent years in a hell of her own making, drinking and failing to get sober.

I decided I was perhaps being a little melodramatic and that my complicated and unresolved feelings about how I ended up in Boston might have been hindering my writing, so I abandoned the attempt. 

It was my bipolar breakdown in 2022 that separated me from my life here.  Forcing my family into the impossible decision of moving me out of my home in PA, and back to Boston, where I could be closer to them. 

Honestly, beyond the writing I did right after the breakdown, I haven't been able to fully wrap my words around it.  And I've given myself a pass at that.

As I've shared before, I've struggled to find my words in general since the breakdown. 

For a while, I wrote everything because I felt like I had to. I felt compelled to give life to every word on the page and driven by an unquenchable need to prove myself.  Now, clearly, I'm a bit more relaxed about the whole thing.  I'm definitely a bit more cautious.  I don't write with the same abandon that I used to, and I think that's a good thing.  It's also a hard thing, because the shame gremlins in my head tell me that, because of this, my writing will never be as good as it was back when I first started this blog.

It's interesting to be back in PA, as it is where I first started my blog when I got out of rehab almost five years ago.  Now that I'm back, I'm hoping I'll pick back up, posting with a regular cadence.  But still, that newish reserve remains. I don't type as confidently... or let's say as boldly as I once did.  

I'm still coming to terms with it.  

But for now, I'm happy to just be back writing.

And I'm definitely happy to be back home.