Revisiting Words From a Former Self
What I found in the archives of my Blogspot (remember those?) and how it reminded me of how far I've come
Welcome, I’m Lindsay. The Slow Studio is a space I’ve created to write about my approach to slow(er) living as a design studio owner, multifaceted creative, first-time motherhood and more. Keep up with me on Instagram, Pinterest and TikTok.
The other afternoon my mind drifted, as it so often does, to tender moments in my college dorm room.
My mind tends to do this every August, when back-to-school season is in full swing and I catch glimpses of students in our city neighborhood schlepping to and from class.
In college I kept a Blogspot as my sole sacred creative outlet, and it’s where I consistently wrote and shared the most intimate inner-workings of my heart and mind for years.
Yesterday, after several attempts, I was able to gain access to my Blogspot account for the first time in a long time.
Below is a draft of the final thoughts I left dangling in that digital, liminal space.
At the time of writing this I was in a challenging season, absolutely terrified at being on the cusp of turning 30 and grasping in vain at the fleeting threads of my so-called youth.
Reading this was immensely healing to me, because I’ve come out on the other side of this better for it. If you’re in a season of feeling adrift from yourself or painfully nostalgic, maybe these words will bring you deep healing, too.
Lindsay,
This is a letter to yourself. You're unabashedly writing it to yourself publicly, on this blog, because no one will see it. It's 2019 now – no one uses this platform to share creative writing now, anyway.
Everything meaningful has been squandered into weightless, pithy Instagram captions, anyway.
It's been 6 years since you last visited this blog. Below is the last unpublished draft you had saved in your account – the summer after college graduation, remember that season?
I just want to
Crawl out of my skin
And into your bed
And abandon the cityscape for a fortnight or two
Exchange the bustle
For serenity,
Complexity
For simplicity
To converse and be understood
Fumble my words like I do best
And laugh myself through it
And retch out all of the pent up honesty.
But I can't –
I'm tied up
With 'commitments'
And 'Somedays'
And expectations-turned-dictations
You didn't know it then, but this would be the last piece of creative writing you'd ever pen on paper before getting caught up in the incessant race of working, forging forward, pushing to be enough.
And now, over half a decade later, just looking at this incomplete piece of writing catches your breath in your throat and you're transported back to sitting on your tiny twin bed in that rickety, sun-drenched Virginia-Highlands apartment where you were listlessly caught halfway between what was and what was to come.
Caught halfway between who was and who was to come.
You didn't know it then, but you'll move far away from all of your inspiration and muses and familiarity. Friends will fall away, responsibility will take the place of creativity.
You didn't know it then, but you'll have dreams. The most vivid dreams full of memories and touches and words that will still haunt you and play in your mind at the most inopportune of times.
You didn't know it then, but you'll find yourself deleting and blocking numbers in your phone – not so they can't reach you, but so your words won't reach them when they drunkenly fumble out from your fingertips in the middle of the night.
You didn't know it then, but you'll never outgrow your nostalgia. You'll still lean on it like a comforting crutch for all of the responsibility that you carry.
It's been 6 years since you last visited this blog.
You'll read through past entries and quake with the exact feelings you felt while writing them. You'll cry. You'll wish you had been more honest – with yourself, with others.
Caught halfway between – and always will be.
