2025. new year. major shifts

… it’s been a long time since I’ve been here. 

 I’ve been itching for a very long time to do all of my segments again - the frugal fashionable Fridays, thrifting Thursdays, the sweet stuff Sundays, the ‘fragments of time’, the mixtapes, and the general farm updates, but for the last year I have been stuck…. 

A lot happened in 2024 that I had a hard time wrapping my head around and honestly I had no idea how to write about it. In January 2024, a year ago, I ended my relationship after almost 25 years. It’s sometimes hard to accept that as individuals grow older in a partnership, you can both evolve into beings who have completely different values and no longer fit together. To be honest, we had very little in common for the last several years of our relationship. This ‘end’ involved many variables and there are many parts to the story that are not mine to tell, but it is what it is and I’ve been figuring out life in a new way for the last several months.

It is easy to cling to the familiar, to a life we’re not ready to part with. But sometimes, it's essential to genuinely see ourselves and where we envision ourselves going. If I am gonna be honest here, I tend to primarily share the good stuff here - it’s a self-soothing thing I assume, especially when reality becomes too overwhelming. It’s a unique perspective, living on the other side of the dream—eyes wide open—walking the tightrope between reality and imagination, intertwining the world in front of us with the one our minds create. But still, I remind myself that there is truth in both places.

In this shift, I’ve found an opening to fall back in love with this old farm, even with the lingering memories of a failed relationship. This farm is a place where weeds sometimes grow out of control, and dust settles everywhere from the dirt road - it can be chaotic at times, just like me. I'm thin-skinned, yet tough as nails. Life is too short to be anything other than what you truly are.

The last several months,  I feel more content and less anxious about the future. I went through some very dark periods, but I found my way back to me. I sat with the loss, the sadness, the hurt, and the truth that the future I’d envisioned for years was long gone and it was time to create a different one. I cried about it and I accepted my part in it, and I let it all go. Through this change, I realize that being alone is profoundly different from feeling lonely—something I was very familiar with in my relationship— and there lies a beautiful strength in solitude. 

…the truth is … I still have so much to learn and figure out about this life…

So here’s to 2025 and the unexpected roads, the spontaneous friendships, and the beautifully complex layers of love. 

xo,

-s