On (Humble) Returns

 It has been over 2 years. 

And I didn't stop writing. But there's this ache in me now; go back. I can hear God whisper, 'Go back to what I was building.'

Returns are funny. There's been a fair bit of editing of all that is collated here which has been surprisingly joyful. Removing pictures, some name blurring, a touch of 'let's archive that for another day, shall we?'. I'm shocked at some of the little tickets of humour I've came out with, like, 'The NHS doesn't have the budget for people to lie to you' (they really don't), or the moments of profound ache that I can still feel the weight of, or the innocence of naivety and lies I tried to convince myself that if my faith is big enough and I tell other people to have more faith this will go away. Sweet one, Jesus is so different to what you think. And in all the best ways, that is. 

And the half-written drafts are just as curious. The musings from July 2021 that wrestle with what we should do here; do we archive it? Do we erase it entirely? How do we capture the journey from the post-GCSE's self to the class teacher I was about to become? My conclusion was archiving, silently, and hoping no one noticed. Yet, simultaneously returning to a new blogging platform where I thought I could abandon that old self, although I didn't recognise it at the time. And then there's the posts inspired by the Tesco delivery man asking, 'Are you always this happy?', uhh... am I? 

I mulleed and mused on 'after two gap terms' for over a year. It was healing for the little part of me that needed to create time for her creative side without the pressure. It captured snippets of my conversations with God, conclusions from delving in deeper into the chaos of life, and acceptance that I am indeed a developing coffee snob. Some of those posts have been transferred here; it would feel wrong to silently abandon that space like I did here. 

But it stopped feeling like the right place. 

It became a place of inauthenticity, of running from myself. I thought I could draw a line underneath the time out from uni I took in 2020; if I drew a line thick enough, it would cover the events that led to that time - it would go away. I thought there was before and after. I believed that there was the version of myself that was destructive, in pain, and sick. And I was in the after; that was gone. The pain had stopped, I didn't have to face it, I would never crumble under the weight of my own existence again.

However, there is no before and after. There are only spirals and circles and processing followed by re-processing followed by more revelations to process again. There is no escaping yourself. Recently I sat in an alcove praying and hoping and longing for God to take every scar and bruise and reminder away. I hate the callouses and the scars and the relentless reminders that I can't avoid wearing. Don't get me wrong, I believe and I know that God is big enough to heal so radically and so powerfully to take it all away if He wanted to. Instead, however, I felt a gentle nudge that said, 'Let me use them.' As ever, I could have screamed into the ether. Yet, when His response began to sink in, coupled with the acute awareness that He has always known best, it became simple and easier to say, 'Okay. Use it.'

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of old musings that now reside in the archive. Partially because the things my 16 year old self had to say are a bit daft, and my fixation with myers-briggs depicts my intense desire to find and write myself in ways I no longer agree with - is this maturation? Perhaps. I'll probably cringe reading back at this just as much, though. But they remain in the archive partially because I want to hold them close; I want to hold her close. I hear and I know and I recognise her, her big feelings, and her bewilderment. And finally, partially because I don't know how this merges with my professional self. It's all identity, it's all presentation, but that final one is a bit more complicated. We might work it out in time. Might. 

So, this is a symbolic and metaphorical and all-consuming return. To the younger self I tried to hide, to the words I tried to mute, to the growth I tried to eradicate; I see you. I hear you. I appreciate you and all you have done. Let's work together - let me hold your hand and bring you into the present.