In its earliest iteration, this blog was a writing blog.

Actually, no, scratch that. In the earliest iteration, this blog was about ADHD. But even then, the whole idea was writing.

The year before, I’d written my first novel. I knew I needed to build a platform in order to be able to sell the thing. I’d queried a couple of agents–one major one was interested, but passed when he couldn’t open the attachment of my partial. His interest was thrilling though–a rare thing that early in the process, especially from an agency so huge. I knew I was on the right track, but I had no platform. I knew I needed a blog. So, I started The Weed.

And now, five years later, here we are. A lot has happened.

So, writing.

It’s kind of a big deal to me.

I really don’t know how to talk about this.

There’s this thing that happened a year and a half ago (summer of 2013) that majorly impacted my life. I haven’t written about it publicly because it was so hard–one of the hardest things that’s ever happened to me as an aspiring writer. It’s one of the hardest things that has ever happened to me as a person, period.

In some ways, it changed my life and the way I view… everything.

I feel like not talking about this is part of what has killed my blog. Like somehow I’ve been keeping a secret. I’m starting to see this clearly now–it’s something like this: this blog has, on a very fundamental level, always been about writing. So to have a really major, really horrible, event pertaining to writing occur and not talk about it here did a major number on my brain. Like my mind interpreted it as a betrayal to this space. It rendered me and my participation here inauthentic.

My brain doesn’t really “do” inauthentic.

So, I’ve just been absent. Silent. Incommunicado.

When I started writing a post randomly yesterday, I had no idea why I was doing it, or what I was doing. It felt random and abrupt and angsty. I just knew I needed to occupy this space again–quietly, personally, independently, intimately. I wrote about my day, called it “post #1” and pressed publish. The only thing I was sure of was that I couldn’t have comments on, and that I had to do this.

Brains are funny.

Today it occurs to me that what my brain is trying to do is to give me a safe space to tell this story.

It’s time. Given where I am today, it’s definitely, definitely time.

This might take a while. It might take a lot of posts, or it might just take a few, but it will probably be a little messy and disjointed. I’m okay with that. I need to get this out there. Without fanfare, without a ruckus. I don’t care who sees it.

I need to get this out there because there’s really no way I can talk about now without explaining then.


And I need to be able to talk about now.

I have no idea how to end this.