It only takes a quick visit to my journal for all the misery of the past few years to sweep over me. I think of brother’s trip to prison because of silly, false accusations. I see the death of a man who was like a father to so many of us. There are my mother’s trips to the hospital on suicide watch, the cruel betrayal of a friend, the act of breaking the heart of a boy I still care very much for, and failing my favorite class twice all laid out in my heart’s dark places. There were many happy moments as well, but the memories of pain still seem to have a way of clinging to me the strongest.

When life started getting sad, I stopped writing. It was barely gradual. One day I was meeting with my favorite English professor, swapping stories. Then I was telling myself not to forget to write an outline for Child of Darkness. Then I was just done. I didn’t want to write at all anymore. For a while, that was enough, and I filled my time with new pursuits like Sudoku and getting a job. When a few months of healing after the death had passed, I began to feel my creative bubbles. So I stuffed them deep down and tried to ignore. I got about halfway through a movie before I turned off the TV just because it was making wish to write. It took writing to pass an English of course, but I didn’t turn in a single writing assignment, so I failed of course without explaining to anyone why. I was miserable, I wanted to write and yet I was disgusted by the very idea.

I didn’t abandon Apricotpie very soon. I was a moderator and took the job very seriously. While I stopped writing posts and reading anything that didn’t need approval, I still visited every day to get posts posted as soon as I could. But I fell off of that too.

Recently, I have been having reasons to come back. I miss writing and I miss Apricotpie. I went back and approved the stacks of submissions waiting for an eye to see them and that spurred me. I think it’s time to come out of my box. I have healed well and strongly with God holding my hand and giving me friends. There is no longer any reason to hold back this one last step of healing. I don’t need to be jealous of friends who write, because I write too. I just needed to remember that.

Here I go, and here’s to trying! Geronimo!