Hello world! It’s me, Bianca

In my first post-hiatus post, A Much Needed Fresh Start, I shared what this new beginning means for me. Besides blogging, it means I have the opportunity to reintroduce myself to the world. I am no longer the same.

Last summer, I was exploring the boundaries of my comfort zone. I was identifying ways to take me out of the rut I was in. One such “adventure” changed everything in the blink of an eye, literally. And my life, and my rut, were shelved for the next 8 months.

Since then, I have been able to consider who I want to present to the world on my return. In some ways, this is nerve-wracking. I have spent years working on myself, but largely keeping it to myself. I was never an under-the-spotlight kind of person. But I took comfort in the fact that the people who needed to know me, already did, lol.

But there are only a small handful of people that have kept in touch over the last several months. They have seen the pain and tears, heard the vulnerability, and admired my patience and resilience.

Part of me worries that the people who weren’t around won’t really be around when I “come out.” That maybe I am too different and they won’t fit anymore. That maybe their life has changed too much and they have no room for me anymore. That maybe what I thought I was coming back to wasn’t really there to begin with.

One of the things I have to accept is that the world and the life I’m coming back to are also not the same. And I have to think hard about which parts of my “before” are really worth being brought into my “after.”

But it is what it is. The truth is I cannot be the same as I was before.

I have grown in some ways, but shrunken in others. I have smiled through pain, and cried through laughter. I have remembered parts of myself, even as I forgot parts of my life from before.

There are moments and periods of your life that are so transformative, you forever after think of your life as “before” and “after.” Entering an “after” is always disconcerting. You often didn’t know that the “before” was ending, so you had no time to say goodbye and resolve the unfinished.

This time, I’m not even entirely sure how I’ve been transformed. I just know I feel different.

A lot of exploration is going to be needed to fully explain to myself how the past year has changed me. And some of it is already obvious in my recent blog posts. But, whether I am recognizable or not, I am still me.

So here I am, shouting into the ether that is my blog “Hello World! It’s me, Bianca.”