These past years have conspired against me. They have pushed me. They have pushed me onto the squalid ground and pressed their heavy boots onto the back of my head. They have pressed down upon my head into thick mud until the bubbles stopped. Until my breath stopped. Until my words stopped. My words stopped. My lungs filled with muck and mire, and my words stopped, and the years had won.

Then something passed by me in my wilderness of sunken squalor. He was not ashamed of the death in me. He was not ashamed of the putrid mud in me. He saw me, and he wanted me, and he spread the corner of his garment over me.

“Live!” He commanded me.

And I did.

I did live.

And I am back. And my words are back. I am writing to you again because I am resurrected from a sunkenness that was too thick for me to come out of alone. I am a phoenix. I am back. My words and I are back.

Welcome to the place where I put my words. I will be kind and I will be cruel. I will be darkness and I will be light. But I will not be afraid.

I was born to do this.

I’m just sorry that it took me so long to remember.

“One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying.”
― Joan of Arc