It’s said that when one creates, they pour something of themselves into their work, a something that can’t be replicated or revisited, a tangible reminder of time and place and circumstance.

I haven’t posted here In a while, but my reticence to do so goes back a while.

I was thinking of divorce, and used my commute from 6200 North to 5900 South every day to write what I was feeling. What I was thinking about, what was happening at home, happening in therapy. I was going through some things.

Then, I lost my notebook.

It was an entry a day for what was about seven months. All scrawled in pen as I rode public transport and had my headphones in. Realizations, recounting, just heartfelt ruminations in my horrible, horrible handwriting.

I didn’t write anything personal like that for another two years.

So, a few weeks ago, the contents of my entire site went poof. And only after a few days of frantic emails and messing about on remote servers and hitting Reload on my web browser, did that work come back.

But in the interim? I couldn’t think of writing again. And even now, as I’ll type this out and hit Publish, I know that I’m taking a huge risk of losing everything again. Not only because of losing things, but the effort, the time, the circumstance. All that would be gone, and whatever I made then wouldn’t be the same, and that flies in the face of what creativity means, to me. A song written after a breakup sounds different than one written while happy. An idea penned at the beginning at the workday hits different than one written after you’ve punched the time clock and want to go home.

So this is me getting back on the wagon. This is me forging ahead, getting the words out of my head and typed out. This is me, the triumph of hope over experience.

This is me.