“It all started on New Year’s day in my 37th year of being a fangirl . . .”

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I’ve never liked making New Year’s resolutions. Probably, because I’ve never been able to keep any of the goals I’ve ever set for myself. It’s not for a lack of trying, though. I’m good until March and then it starts to go downhill from there. After that, it’s just about keeping my head above water, resisting the urge to sink.

I guess I don’t really understand the concept, either. Personal growth shouldn’t be limited to one time of the year. It shouldn’t be in reaction to a month’s-long binge of mini-chocolate snowman pulled delicately out of a flimsy paper door, or obscene amounts of fluffy and delicious Little Debbie Christmas Tree Cakes. It’s a personal and intimate process that weaves in and out of our lives in waves. Life is constantly changing. We’re constantly changing. The things we find important right in this moment might be meaningless even a week from now. We all need to give ourselves a break and remember we’re just a bunch of flesh and bones strapped to a rock, hurdling through space. Yes, my permanent relationship status with New Year’s resolutions has been and will always be deemed as “on again, off again.”

The whole eat better/exercise/lose twenty pounds is a given for myself and anyone whose ever made a New Year’s resolution since the invention of the New Year’s resolution some four-thousand years ago. I don’t whether that bit of unconfirmed history is true, but let’s go with it just the same.

Other personal resolutions are way too confidential to share and don’t need to be broadcasted across the entire internet. What kind of blog do you think I’m running here, anyway? That was never my kind of thing. This blog has always been my escape from the real world; a place where none of that self-help bullsh*t matters and we can all be our authentic, enthusiastic for random pop-culture, fangirl selves.

Remember what I said, though. We’re constantly changing. I’m constantly changing. And this is where that “on again, off again” tag comes in. While I won’t be making any of the usual resolutions – because it’s better for my mental health if I don’t set myself up for failure – I do want to resolve to be a better version of myself in simpler, easier ways. And I found the only way that I can really accomplish any type of goal is to write it down, so I’m creating a self-care to-do list. I think I have a pretty good starting point.

• Read (at least) 6 books from my increasing growing TBR list.
• Make one recipe a month from the multitude of cook books I have and never opened.
• Have more adventures. Treat every weekend like it’s a vacation.
• Throw out/donate all the things I don’t need in my life for a serious de-clutter.
• Write.

That last one is the most important. Writing is one area of my life that I’ve been seriously neglecting. I’ve been making excuses. I’ve been making excuses, especially when it comes to writing and this blog. “There’s not enough time.” “I’m too busy.” It never f*****g ends!

In fact, do you want to know a secret? This post? This very post? I started writing it on December 30th of 2022. No joke.

This morning, as I was doom-scrolling through my semi-abandoned page, I was instantly unnerved by the backlog of drafts I left in the interim, because I realized nothing has changed between then and now. I’m still fighting with the same demons, still trying to maim and wound that little voice in my head that says, “you’re not good enough.” I’m still trying to climb that insurmountable wall that blocks the words out and flawlessly keeps the silence in.

The story alludes me; and I’m so scared that the magic has vanished and the vine has withered. I’m so scared that it won’t ever come back, that I’ll be left here, in the dark.

What happens when the characters don’t talk as freely as they used to? Where do I go when the beauty of night consumes my mind and there are no stars left in the sky? What do I do when the verse is held brutally captive in a cage of my own design? How do I save myself, when I don’t even know that I’m the one that needs saving?

I guess it doesn’t really matter at this point. I guess my fear has only ever been temporary. We’ve reached the point in the post where the lines hit the page a little faster, where the voice talks a little louder, where the wall breaks and a sliver of light can be seen, when breathing becomes a little easier. I’m just as surprised as you are that I’ve gotten this far. After all, it took almost three years for me to get here. Maybe the story never really leaves me. It just hides, waits for me to wake from this forced slumber, and with the slowest of motions, begs me to return.

I’d like to say some romantic meet-cute or some earth-shattering revelation caused my pen to press its ink back onto the page. No, it was nothing like that. This is a routine I’ve found myself in before.

When the weather changes and the leaves start to fall, without fail, the itch to write sneaks under my skin, and I attempt to leave my cave and come out of seclusion. The serotonin boost that comes with a updated winter playlist somehow inspires me to call out everything I’ve learned in the past twelve months, strange as it seems. The approaching near year brings possibility, the hope that good will come my way, that love in whatever form is close and within my reach. That alone dissolves all reason and I reach for that WordPress password that I almost definitely forgot.

Obviously, it doesn’t always work. Up until a couple of months ago, when it came to writing creatively, my mind was blank, completely and utterly gone, thought to be lost forever. I don’t know what changed this time; what made me want to go back to my old ways. One day in November, I got up and just started writing. And it seemed easier, better than it ever had before. Will that motivation stick? Who knows? I’m going with the flow on this one.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve been out of practice for a very long time. Forced into a rather dull limbo, trying to squeeze any ounce of creativity I can from the hundreds of work emails I send everyday. I don’t want to do that anymore. I can’t. It’s killing me.

2023 and 2024 added up to a big bowl of nothing soup and I’m extremely disappointed in myself. I’m sorry that it took me so long. I’m sorry it took me so long to remember that I have a safe place I can go to when I need to speak of vampires and ghosts, of the fae-like songstress who lives in my soul, to speak of anything and everything I can think of.

It might not be like it used to be, but I don’t want to forget this time. I don’t want to lose myself to the darkness, to the one that hates me, the one who carefully crafts each brick and places them on the wall that keeps me from releasing these flowery thoughts. Writer’s Block, you b*tch! How you deceive! How you make me scream! How you make me ache! This has been the first time since I started blogging in 2010 that I haven’t reviewed a new Florence + The Machine album and that fact absolutely destroys me. Between Dance Fever, two live albums, and four singles, I have a lot to make up for.

Even though it pains me to say it, I’m not as much of fangirl as I used to be. I still read fan-fiction every day. I still daydream about my favorite fictional characters and the actors that play them. That hasn’t changed. It won’t. But that fangirl feeling is definitely not as strong as it used to be. The one good thing about social media was that it kept me connected. I knew what was coming up next, what I could look forward to. The decision to leave the site formally known as Twitter was the best one I could make to keep my sanity and protect my mental health, but I miss keeping up with the behind the scenes clips and the quick tease of new music. I miss keeping up with you.

Whether it be blog posts, short stories, or flash fiction, I want to write something of value (either very good or very bad; a little or a lot) every day. Well, maybe every week. Okay, let’s be honest. It’ll probably be once a month. I have to start somewhere, right?

My main priority is finishing the sequel to A Kind Of Magic. I’ve wanted to do that for a long while. I also want my blog posts to be a little more substantial than they had been toward the end, more diverse and weighted. We’ll see, though. If I want to go off on a five-hundred word rant on why it was completely unnecessary to split Wicked into two movies or why having the actors sing live was the worst choice they could make, I just might.

True, I tried a similar blog resolution in 2020 with a post a day. Even with all the time in the world to write, that didn’t really work out, did it? This time, I’m not going to put so much pressure on myself. It has to be different this time around. I can’t make any promises, I won’t. There’s so many puzzle pieces missing inside me. I need to put some of them back.

Now that the world has been thrown into darkness again, just as I find myself getting out, I don’t want to be constantly searching for the light, because we need it now more than ever. If you’re having trouble finding the good amongst all the bad, I want to be the one there for you. I want to be the one to put a smile on your face, even if it is for only the briefest of moments. I want to be the sun, the moons, and the stars. Hold my hand. We’ll get through this like we always have, together. 

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