I didn’t know what to title this post. Recently, I purchased a new phone and it has a journaling app. And ever since I purchased the phone, around 8:00 PM every night, I receive a notification to write a journal entry. As quick as I receive the notification, I quickly dismiss it and proceed doing whatever it is I’m doing in that moment. 

I haven’t wrote a blog post in over a year. I closed down the website and took a break. So much was happening last year that I felt I needed to walk away. Whether it was my own failing motivation to write or just life’s happenings, in that moment, I felt I could find another avenue to express myself beyond writing. So the year speeds by in a glance, from having my third son in December 2023 to getting married in April 2024, and in this time, I was still trying to discover that “new” avenue to express my creative self. In the midst of all of these transitions, life continued happening day to day. Then we arrive at where I am today: lost, confused, and literally just feeling like I’m just existing. The day-to-day is the same: working, wifing, mommying, working, wifing, mommying. Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy my roles for my family, but I recognize something feels different this time around. I crave my own identity as with all of life’s transitions, somewhere in the midst, I personally didn’t transition well with it. 

You still here and reading? By now you’re probably wondering “okay Janelle what are you saying?” I literally just blabbered on and on and on and haven’t yet given a meaning or reason to this writing. I’m still trying to learn my takeaway from the past year beyond never having so many transitions at one time. I also believe that just because one’s life is changing in so many ways doesn’t mean every aspect of who we are personally needs to change with it. Sometimes we are the change and that’s enough. We literally live each day adapting to a world that is so chaotic (literally CHAOTIC). And we’re still suppose to function with poise, grace, and contentment, which I’ll speak for myself, is FAR FROM ANYTHING I WANT TO BE THESE DAYS. We all have that “thing” in us that makes us uniquely ourselves and that thing cannot be changed because it is the essence of what makes us. What’s my thing? My writing. Something I can admit I’ve gotten so far away from searching for my new identity in all of the transitions happening in my life when all along, writing is and was the one thing that should remain with me as my personal and unique identifier. 

So what do I want anyone reading to take away from this? Whatever your thing is that just feels right in all of the mess and life’s changes and transitions, never give up on it. Keep up with it as it is the unique identifier for who you are. We live in a world that is forever changing and it says we should be changing with it. Change is absolutely inevitable. We age daily which is a constant change we cannot stop. But in the midst of all of the changes, never lose sight of the normality of who you are and what identifies you. Get back to your new normal. All of your answers may just be waiting for you there.