When life speeds up, little things start to fall by the wayside.

And slowly but surely, the smaller things being left behind turn into the bigger things being left behind.

Like writing and exercise. Two things as essential to me as breathing, if I am paying any mind to my well-being, yet my focus on them has been smaller than is truly healthy for me.

Lots has been happening over the past few months. In fact, so much has been happening that I can barely keep up with it all, but I have had a difficult time writing about any of it. Sometimes writing about the difficult things makes me feel like I am only complaining. I can’t stand to be a complainer.

The truth is, life comes at you in full force. The wonderful and the not-so-wonderful come all tangled up in one giant heap of something to be dealt with.

For the past few months, I feel like all of my energy has gone into maintaining the something to be dealt with and trying to hold it all together.

Maintain. Don’t fall apart. Stay positive. Trust the process. Sleep. Repeat.

Life has been hard. I was struggling at home with a less-than-desirable roommate situation (which completely depleted my physical and emotional energy), working out the logistics of getting my new roommate moved in, going through my first annual review process at work, doing my absolute best to try and show up as a friend for an ex-boyfriend during a time where he really needed one (as mentioned in Scratch That), facing the sudden and unexpected resurfacing of my father (who has been absent from my life for over 20 years), and it all culminated in a very major promotion. All at once, life got real.

Maintain. Don’t fall apart. Stay positive. Trust the process. Sleep. Repeat.

Through it all, I’m not really talking about it. I’m not writing about it. I am holding it all in and just…waiting. Waiting for it to be less raw, less powerful, less emotional. I shelved it, shelved it all, without any idea of when I would be able to come back to it. Of how to even get started on sharing about it.

I haven’t written about my promotion at work, which is something I would normally jump at doing, because it’s wonderful yet simultaneously rip-my-hair-out frustrating. I don’t quite know how to write about it with any sort of perspective because I am caught right in the middle of it. I am not always happy. I am elated and proud of myself and excited and I am also exasperated and exhausted and at my wit’s end. Simply put: it’s a lot. Every single day there’s things to do that I don’t know how to do, questions to answer that I have no idea how to answer, and decision after decision to be made. I do it all to the best of my ability, and that has to be enough.

For all the other stuff, I have not found the words yet.

These difficult and emotional things, while important, are things that I call into question when deciding on the content for this blog. Like I’ve said many times, Twenty-Everything is my platform to be open, honest and unashamed about my feelings and experiences. But still, I couldn’t write it.

Life kept coming. It was asking me, over and over again, to be more adult than I was ready to be.

As I continued with my semi-regular posting schedule, but made no mention of the incredibly personal things going on in my life, slowly my blog began to feel less and less authentic. I felt that my readers were getting less of an idea of who I really am, at this moment, and only seeing the parts of me that are polished and perfect and ready to be presented to the world.

We all know polished and perfect is only an illusion, and I have no desire to be inauthentic. I want this blog to be everything I set out for it to be: inspiring and motivating and thought-provoking and, above all, a safe space for honest sharing.

So, this is it. This is the gritty and the incredibly personal and the difficult and the everything I have been going through.

Most of of it is unresolved. Everything is in process. There aren’t many answers at this point, only questions and more to be revealed.

It’s a little bit messy and it’s definitely imperfect. But it’s authentically me.

xoxo

Sarah