If you’ve come here looking for an old post, I’m sorry. While I’ve backed up the entire blog and have saved the posts for a time in the future when I may need to look back or otherwise revisit them, for now, they’ve vanished into the ether.

When I first started writing here, I was a different person than I am today – on so many levels. I was clinging to a recovery from anorexia and self harm that was, well, newer than I’d like to admit. Work was an unsteady thing. I was trying to come to terms with my relationship with my parents and was living in New England in the nation’s only state capitol without a McDonalds, a city that always felt too small to really be able to grow in. My relationship with my partner was recognized in far fewer places, and all I knew was that something had to give.

I wrote here throughout the process of coming to terms with recovery. I wrote through the process of working as a freelance writer and the frustrations that left me with. I wrote through a period of my life during which I came to realize that I would never feel at ease in my skin unless I underwent some dramatic changes. I spent some time being far more politically active than I am now, and far more time reigning that all back in. I got into a number of arguments with people who seemed to view eating disorder recovery as something that only pertained to young women, that could best be obtained only through the foundation of strong family relationships, and as something that – when it related to minority groups – should be focused on helping those whose minorities were, well, a lot larger than mine. That worked in concert with my anger – and for a long while, this blog became something left in my past.

I thought about selling it. I thought about revamping it. I thought about using it as a cross between a blog focused on reaching others and a playground where I could focus on the medium itself.

In other words, for an extended period of time, I lost my voice.

Which isn’t to say that I lost track of recovery or that I quit working on myself: It’s more that I just turned my focus inward or put words down on paper. I reached out for help a couple of times, but backed down before accepting it. I changed my name, changed my identity, began to build a new life and a new career that’s more meaningful than I’d hoped for in the past. And I’ve struggled, because there have been so, so, so many changes – and there are more to come in the very near future.

What I know now is this:

• I’m about to undergo the most radical change that I’ve ever put my body through, and I’m nervous about the ways in which seeing those changes – and being restricted in movement and activity levels for a period after – will impact me.
• I’ve made a lot of changes this year to my diet, and it’s been the first time that all of them are for the right reasons (but it still trips me up a little).

In other words, what I’ve come to realize – however gradually – is this: Life is amazing, but no matter how far I get into recovery, it seems like there will always be things that trip me up, if only a little. But more importantly, what I know is that that’s okay – and it’s a reason to try to get back into this space.

The blog isn’t going to be what it’s been before. Like me, it’s going to evolve – but hopefully it will still offer value.