This is my 100th post…
Not sure how that rates me, as I’ve had this blog active since spring 2011, but either way, a lot has happened since then.
I achieved my initial goal of earning my MA in Publishing and Creative Writing. I lived in London for nearly two years and was blessed to gain international knowledge and connections. I worked as a bartender and gained experience in publishing houses through various internships. I kept my design skills fresh by working for Kingston University on several publishing projects and in the KUP. Then there was the whole – falling in love for the first time and finding myself as a young adult, also for the first time. It was effortless to become the most fit I’d ever been in my life while in London. I never felt more alive and free.
Of course, this is all stuff I’ve mentioned before. What surprises me most are the unexpected gains once returning back to my hometown. I thought I lost everything in having to return to a place that always felt so small for what I wanted to achieve and where I wanted to be. It was even harder knowing that I’d found myself, and my home, in London. To this day, I still consider London my ‘home-city.’ As do many from around the world that had the chance to experience that life with me.
But, as I’ve grown back into this life, I discovered a hole in me that was filled with family before I left for London. Now, it’s filling again from being home. All warm and cozy. It offers a peace and calm, a complete safety and security that I hadn’t notice I missed. Somehow I found the strength through my family and within myself to push aside my newly discovered depression to become a happy and ambitious woman again.
All while in this place. Not London… here.
The fact that I’ve actually started and made serious progress with my publishing company in a year with my encouraging business partner – one of my closest confidents. Not to mention maintaining my full-time job at the SCA to a point where I can juggle all the departments I manage, including my beloved gallery and the very first publication from the new SCA Publishing Company that I’m leading to develop.
Every single project, every single inch of my life brings me happiness now. Even when it seems hard and the complications build in front of me. Even when I find the familiar tears in my eyes, I know it is different. I am able to work through situations and feels like a giant success. I can see each change as I move forward, and build myself as a professional and a young woman. The taste of defeat is nothing, nothing, I want to try again, and with each challenge I find a new strength that allows me to breathe through the pressures and fear calmly.
(The practice of yoga has helped greatly).
In the last two years since I’ve had this blog, so much has happened. But one thing is starting to become abundantly clear and consistent, every morning that I wake up I will face something new and challenging. Even here. It is up to me how I handle it, and even if life is not in my control, I can always try to control my reaction. Especially now that I can accept and face my fight with depression head-on, rather than letting it slip into my weakest moments like a sliver…
I am not the same woman who started this blog. I am not the same woman I was in January, March, July or August. By the time I reach 200 posts, who knows what I will be doing, or who I will become. But, I will retain my ambition and my smile.
And I hope you can all find the strength to do the same!
xx. Kristin
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