A small Hello after a long pause.

It feels like forever since I last dropped an article. Life has really been life-ing, and somewhere in the middle of it, I lost the urge to write about anything. That kinda feels strange to admit, because writing has always been my safest way of making sense of myself—expressing emotions, untangling thoughts, and coming back to who I am.

But anyway here I am, breaking the silence with something simple: Hello.👋

Hello to you, reading this.

Hello to the version of me that only exists when I write.

I’ve missed this me.

If I’m being completely honest, dropping this article makes me feel a little like that ex who isn’t ready to commit again but still sends the occasional “I miss us” text. I’m here, but I’m not sure how steady I’ll be. I’m wrestling with a few things, nothing I’d call a full-blown identity crisis, but the symptoms are there: the questions, the shifting ground, the feeling of not fully recognizing myself.

At times, it feels like I’ve been locked away for too long, only to be suddenly hard-launched into the world. And the world I’ve returned to is not what I expected and neither am I who I thought I’d be.

I feel like the world has moved several meters ahead of me, and I’m running to catch up. But the closer I get, the farther it feels. I feel pushed to decide who I want to be, as if the world is waiting for an answer I don’t yet have. Maybe I just need more time. Or maybe I’ve already taken too much, and the world is leaving me behind.

I long for space. Space to process every feeling, every thought, every moment. To not just move through life but to understand it. To truly feel, truly know. But the world rarely grants that kind of pause. It throws one thing after another—the good, the bad, and the in-betweens—without allowing me to catch my breath.

And so I wonder: will I ever catch up with time? Will I ever find a way to live at my own rhythm, when everything around me is rushing forward? Am I the problem, or is the world the problem? Or maybe neither. maybe what I need is a quiet conversation with the universe, to ask what it wants from me, and what it wants for me.

There’s a line from the song — mariners apartment complex by Lana Dey Rey, that I like to use to describe myself - “I ain’t no candle in the wind, I’m the bolt, the lightning, the thunder.”

And maybe that’s what this small hello really is, a reminder to myself that even in the pause, even in the questioning, I am still here. Still becoming. Still capable of thunder.

So hello again. I don’t know where this return will lead, but I know it begins here. with these words, and with you.

Thank you for reading ❤️