Where Have I Been? A Journal Entry on The Last Few Years

Introduction:

Hey everyone! Happy New Year! I'm back! I know I haven't posted in over a year and I am here to tell you all about why and what's been going on. I hope your holidays went well, your writing and reading has been joyful, and that you are smashing your goals for the month already. I hope you are doing things you love that bring you happiness and may this year be the best for you!

Things Didn't Go As I Planned...

Here I am in 2026, not published, not a lot of my goals met that I have set year after year. Some new and some old. Putting out all my words of wisdom, writer advice, and failing at it myself. Story of my life. Lol 

I know the secrets, but doing them for myself is a whole different ball game. I've been on a journey these last 5 years since I started writing and I've learned a lot, experienced a lot, and grown up a lot all on the road to success. It will happen for me. Just a few years later than I planned, and that is okay. My writing journey ended up being seasons where writing felt good, and seasons where I didn't write at all while I was figuring myself out. I'm excited about where I am in my journey. I let go of a lot of negative feelings and old beliefs, and I'm truly doing better than ever in life and in my writing life. It just took a lot of honesty with myself, and lots of self love and self compassion to finally get here. 

So to recap...

When I started this blog in 2023 I was trying to revise what I planned to be my debut billionaire romance novel. I have since shelved that novel and it has gone into my "trunked novels" folder along with my very first book: The YA romance that was very much Twilight inspired. Lol I spent 2020-2021 writing that one, but I easily let that one go. 

Why did I do this? 

The simple answer is that I no longer loved the story and knew it wasn't what I wanted to be writing. And bonus, I wrote the first draft before I really learned how to write. How story structure works. That characters need goals and motivations. And that all fiction is conflict. My books had NONE of that. 

So, those months I spent on here in 2023 and 2024 posting about that book and revisions? I was struggling to make it work behind the scenes. Struggling to even show up daily to try and tackle that book, when it honestly wasn't fixable with how I wrote it. I was clearly stuck. 

Let it Go!

So over 2023-2024 I spent months agonizing over it. Not letting myself move on to other projects I have planned because I couldn't let it go. And there is the first lesson as a writer and in life. (Shout out to Meghan March for drilling "Let it Go" in her community group!) Anyway, the lesson: Learn to let things go. I had a hard time letting this story go because I had already done that with my first novel. And I felt like I was letting myself down, my husband down, (which is crazy because he is 100% supportive of me and my writing no matter what), and I even felt guilty over it. It was INSANE how much I let that book freeze me as a writer. And that guilt leaked to this blog. I wasn't writing consistently so I didn't feel like I should be posting. Progress was slow, or at times, non existent. 

Don't do what I did. Don't be so stubborn it kills your creative spirit or stops you from progressing. Let the books that are not working go. What isn't serving you, let it go. Let all your past beliefs and plans about that book go. If it's not the book of your heart anymore and know it's not what you should be working on, let it go. Most writers have first attempts that never see the light of day. It wasn't wasted. It's all practice for what will become your debut. Or maybe you've been writing and publishing and it's book number 8 that you need to let go of. Here is your permission slip to do that.  No time writing was wasted, but you have to know when to let go and move on to the next right book. 

During and After Letting it Go

Content Warning for this section: Mental Health, Depression, Suicidal Ideation. 

I need to give you a backstory for this part to show how I moved forward and got back to writing joyfully again. My husband has always struggled with his mental health. Specifically: depression, suicidal thoughts and ideation, and anxiety due to a combo of genetics and childhood family trauma. I won't go into details, because that's not my story to tell, but I will tell you how this affected me as the spouse of someone who struggles with mental illness. 

I was fine. At least I thought I was fine. And I guess old me would say that my hubby's mental health battle didn't affect me at all while dating and even the first few years of our marriage for many reasons. I was blissfully unaware, I ignored the hard things, and I was very much in my selfish era during the first several years of marriage. He was also good at hiding his inner thoughts too, and he was just trying to always support me. I love that man. He has always put me first. 

I need to save marriage counseling for another day, but please give us grace. Neither of us did anything wrong, or ever tried to harm one another intentionally. It's getting married at 20 and 21 and then learning and growing together. Becoming adults. Learning how to support and communicate with each other and now we don't even recognize those young people we used to be. Thank goodness.

All of that to say, the years of his struggles did affect me. It is very heavy to be in the midst of the roller coaster of mental illness as the spouse. The 2020s have been hard. I'd say 2024 was the hardest. Some of 2025 was hard. Combine that with trying to force myself to write what my heart was no longer in. Yeah, not good. Lol

 I also coped by being my usual happy, super positive self I always am. I projected that to him, to the world, my social spaces online, and in real life. I consumed so much self help and life coach podcast content to battle/cover up all the mental health struggles going on with my husband, and even though I wouldn't admit it at the time, within myself. I avoid the hard things. Clearly. Lol And at the time I would have never admitted that maybe I'm not okay.

On top of me doing all of this, I felt like only one person in a relationship could be struggling at a time. I fully understand this is not okay now. I've since gotten better, and strive to be open and honest about how I'm feeling. But I always felt like I had to be the mentally strong one, always happy and great, because my hubby wasn't. Even though he would want me to talk to him, be honest with my struggles, I was too scared at the time. See how much I had to learn?  I walked on eggshells like crazy and it's something I have to think about not to do daily. But we have done the work, we continue to do the work, and things got better. 

The Breaking Point and Better Days...

2023 and 2024 were probably the hardest ever on the inside, but we made it through. I'm skipping a lot of personal growth and self marriage counseling here, but you know that's part of the journey. 

Finally, 2025 was our year of healing. At the end of 2024, I had let go of that second novel, and planned to write a new book in 2025. New year, new goals, and letting go of my second book would fix my creative spirit and I could move forward. But writing was still hard. I still struggled to show up, be creative, and get words on the page.

Meanwhile, My hubby sees his doctors on the regular and he's doing the best he ever has. I can truly say that. He also started running, and I can't tell you the number of benefits that has had on his mental health.  Just writing this brings me to tears. 

Fast forward to the second half of 2025. I was in a state where doing simple tasks felt impossible. This had gotten worse and worse over the last few years. Everything was hard to do. I still haven't seen a doctor, and would tell myself "I'm just being lazy. It shouldn't be hard to do chores, write, etc." I was overwhelmed by the simplest things. I was pushing through, staying consistent with working out, cooking, and finding little joys in nature with new hobbies like birding. Just trying to get out of my own head. But writing was the hardest to do. I even did a challenge made for writing that was extremely hard, to try and force myself back into good habits. It did help, I did build some good habits, and I think I needed some structure, but it wasn't the whole answer. I was honestly pretty much just surviving most of 2025. 

For me to get better, it was finally admitting to myself that I was struggling, and that I needed help. It took the miracle of seeing my husband get better. I saw him doing so well that I finally admitted to myself something was wrong with me. I saw how he could do things again, and smile, be joyful, be productive, and I wanted that so bad for myself. I have all these big dreams and goals for myself and I want all of it, but I couldn't make myself do the work. 

 By this point, my husband knew differently. He kept checking in with me. Asking if I need to get help, see a doctor, until I finally gave in and admitted that maybe I'm not okay. For him, medical cannabis was the answer.  It saved his life. I truly believe that. When I tell you I physically saw the weight of the world lift from his shoulders, I'm not lying. He transformed. His new medicine made it easy for him to breathe and live, and be able to feel like life wasn't such a massive burden anymore. I was so desperate for that, I wanted to try it. And it turns out medical cannabis was the answer for me too. And yes, it took us forever to get here because we both had a lot of work to do to erase all of our programmed beliefs about cannabis being bad. It was very much criminalized in our childhood and we believed lots of negative things about it that we found aren't true. 

I now call it Sativa Superpowers because I felt like it literally reset my brain. Lol That's what I told my hubby and I can't explain it, but that first time taking it, flipped my switch back on. And maybe it's placebo, but I'll take it. I am hopeful again, creative again, energetic again, and it's not hard to do things anymore. That's when I got excited to write again, let go of even more things, and got back to writing. And writing what I want to read at that. 

Moving Forward in 2026

Wow! I made it. I couldn't write all that above without stopping for tissues. Lol But I wanted to share my story with you and let you know what's been going on. I only share the positive side of myself, which is really my true self, on social media spaces, and I find it hard to open up and share the hard stuff, but I felt I needed to write this to really purge myself of the past, let go, and hope that maybe this post will help someone in their own journey. 

I am presently the happiest I've ever been. The hubby and I have put in the WORK. But it has been totally worth it. What's the cheesy therapy line? "Work it because I'm worth it?" Yes. It's true. You are worth it. I am writing consistently everyday again. Back to easily meeting my daily word count goal. I'm currently working on my new book which I plan to debut with this year. And everyday, I show up, I am happy to write, excited about my story, grinning at my computer screen and feeling all the feelings again. I am so much lighter. It's so good to be back to myself again. 

I have big dreams and plans for 2026 and this year anything can happen. I have my mojo back, I'm hopeful, and I couldn't be more grateful and excited for all the good things that are coming my way. If you made it this far, thank you for reading, and I hope something I've written helps you on your own journey. 

Leave me a comment below and tell me what you learned from last year, or what you are most excited for in 2026! 

As always, 

Happy Writing xoxo