A long pause...

I came to my favorite place to write this post. Melrose. A local restaurant here in Renton. Melrose isn’t just a restaurant here. It becomes a witness to this chapter of my life. I love it here. It’s comforting. A perfect ending to my day.

2026 has made me feel the need to go nonverbal. All I want to do is be quiet.

I lost my greatest love this year. It has changed me in ways I’d never imagined, ways I never saw coming. I am trying to flow with this moment. I’ve been rigid and stagnant for so long. Fighting against my reality at hand. I’m learning to accept the things that I cannot change.

I am enjoying that I am returning to blogging after such a long pause. There’s something quietly powerful about reopening that door, not because I’ve figured everything out, but because I’m willing to write from the middle of the story. I want to invite you to walk beside me rather than watch from a distance. You feel me?

I’ve also returned to pole.

Pulling out my Pleasers and climbing again felt so natural. So magnetic. Like my body remembered something my heart had forgotten.

For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t trying to outrun my thoughts or make sense of them. I was simply present. Every climb, every spin, every moment suspended in the air reminded me that I’m still here. My body is still capable of creating something beautiful, even while carrying grief.

Healing hasn’t looked like moving on. It’s looked like returning to the parts of myself that have always made me feel alive.

Maybe that’s what this year has been asking of me all along. Not to become someone new, but to find my way back to myself.

And finding my way back to myself is so loaded.

Everyone says heartbreak helps you find yourself again. But I don’t think I’m returning to anyone. I’m meeting a version of myself that’s being shaped by both love and loss.

Maybe healing isn’t a return. Maybe it’s an introduction.

Never imagined I’d be writing about this, but all I can say now is that I’m grateful. Grateful for it all.