Most people who stop blogging for any period of time and then come back usually have a triumphant return story, or a life affirming message, or a new lease on life or have been through a big change in their lives – separation, divorce, death in the family. My return to blogging isn’t nearly as exciting, or important. I don’t have a big secret to tell, there is no launch into something new and I’m not here to tell you that finally my long suffering husband got sick of me and bailed.

The truth is, in the past month more than a few people have asked me why I stopped writing. At first I didn’t really have an answer because it wasn’t something that I consciously decided to stop doing. Much like a new season sneaking in and before you really notice you’ve gone from wearing shorts to jeans the transition to not writing about my life happened and then one day I suddenly realised it had been months and I didn’t miss it at all.

I had started to feel like I had to write because some expected me to have something to say. When I realised I didn’t have anything to say, then it became really hard to write because everything felt mediocre and I have always had such high expectations of myself. So I just shut up. A crisis of writing confidence, as it were.

I’ve always believed that if we listen to our inner voice, we know what we need. Could I have forced it? Sure! I could have sat down, and recounted the day I took Oliver grocery shopping and he told me that his willy was up, and when I looked down at him, not only was his willy up, but he had it OUT and the lady next to us looked like she was three seconds away from a heart attack….. but then I wondered why? Why bother? Who is that story going to help?

And then, that’s the crux of it. Because I used to feel like when I wrote, it helped people. When I was raw with grief and hurt and loneliness I felt like I could write so others would understand. When PTSD threatened to ruin my relationships with my children and my husband I wrote because it was an outlet into which I could vent my anxieties and frustrations and not spew those venomous thoughts at the people I loved dearly but felt completely disconnected from. When Oliver was sick, when my hundred thousand dollar baby wasn’t meeting milestones properly, was diagnosed as failure to thrive and had surgery scheduled and performed I wrote because it got those thoughts out of my head and into the world where other parents fear and struggle and worry.

But now, I wonder what this next chapter of my life will bring and what the motivation for writing once again will become. I know it won’t be grief and anger and longing because I have largely moved into acceptance and belief that everything does happen for a reason and my reason was greater compassion and understanding. I know it won’t be depression, anxiety, anger and PTSD because aside from some very small moments where a trigger knocks me, I have become calm and centered and mostly at ease with myself, and my list of neurosis and mental instabilities.  What will come next will likely unfold only as it happens. The focus has shifted and its a new and unusual situation for me to sit, in front of a laptop which is on it’s last legs, in a new job which has seen me return to work full time doing some very long hours in a very challenging environment, with two children who are blessed in their good health and neurotypical ways, with a husband who continues to be the most supportive and understanding best friend I ever could have hoped for…..

I have no idea what is to come. But I’m ready to take it on, with open arms and sometimes, i might even write about it.