Introspection

Petite Studio NYC dress (c/o)
Celine sunglasses
Mango hat
Agape Studio necklace (c/o) (similar)
Agape Studio earrings (c/o) (similar)
Location: Osborne Village – Winnipeg, Manitoba

I’ve been quiet lately. That’s not really in my nature, although there have been times in my life when I’ve chosen my words more carefully. Mostly, I don’t hesitate to say what I’m thinking when I think it. I’m chatty, full of ideas, always interested in new perspectives. While I love time spent alone with a good book, when I’m with someone else, there is not a second of silence.

Maybe it’s the product of two years of forced solitude. Or maybe it’s just a natural continuation of the path that I embarked on when I decided, in late 2016, that it was finally time to come home. All I know for sure is that I’ve spent the past several months in a period of deep, and necessary, introspection.

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My return home, although at least partially motivated by economic concerns – I just could not keep paying so much rent for so little space to store my shoes – was a choice that I didn’t make lightly. I left Winnipeg at nineteen, ostensibly to complete my university degree, but I won’t pretend that I wasn’t at least partially motivated by a desire to run away, to escape the only life I’d ever known and build one I preferred in a new place. That wasn’t all of it, but it was a big part of it. The idea at the time, I’m sure, was never to return. But looking back now, reflecting on it, I wonder how I thought I could manage that. I wonder how I thought it was possible to completely sever ties with the first two decades of my life when so many people, places and events would always connect me to it.

…it was when I realised that I’d never be able to that I knew it was time to come back. To face everything. To figure out how to live with it, and also live beyond it. But the process isn’t straightforward. Introspection is looking inward, examining yourself, and it can be uncomfortable, sometimes even painful, particularly if you don’t like what you find. Some parts of my return have been joyful, others illuminating. But right now, speaking frankly, it’s work, and the work is hard.

So I’ll probably continue to be quiet for a while, as this period of introspection continues. And really, I just wanted to acknowledge that, and thank you all for continuing to be here, for reading along even when I don’t seem be writing about much of anything at all. I’m grateful.

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