Well hey there!
Three and half years ago when I started this blog under the name ‘Failing Joyfully’ I was in the midst of some undiagnosed post-natal depression, as well as some pretty heavy faith deconstruction. I’ve mostly come through the PND, and the faith stuff – well – that’s ongoing (it’s a work that’s never ‘done’ though, right?). The idea behind Failing Joyfully was throwing my whole self into the process of writing about what was going on in my faith and life journey. The original idea behind the phrase was one of not being afraid to get it wrong, or make mistakes, or change my mind.
This is still a valuable idea for me and I suspect for many of you, too. Often – for those of us who have grown up in the church at least – we are taught through process and practice to keep our questions tucked quietly away, to suppress our doubts and fears, and to toe the line. Failing Joyfully was about freedom from legalism and religiosity. Rather than trying to simply do away with questions, doubts, and fears, it was a journey through them. To a large extent this is still true. The journey is never over, and I intend to continue with the best of my ability, in authenticity, honesty, and truth. I hope I will always continue the sorting and the Spring cleaning.
But, for some time I had been feeling like I was stuck, practically. I toyed with the idea of a change (it’s as good as a holiday, right?) but never put any thought into action. Life is full; there is always something else demanding attention. But sometimes in life’s jostling of priorities, coincidences intervene (some call it fate, providence, God)… and when demands go unmet, they have a way of rearing their heads in other ways. I lost my domain name due to unknowingly letting the payment lapse. After the initial anger at myself, and the tears for what was lost, I realised it was what I wanted all along, and so here we… introducing my new website! I think she’s kinda pretty. There’s still a bit to do around here, but I’m trying not to stress about things not living up to my ideals of perfection. I’ll keep plodding along!
I started working on this space behind the scenes in late October. As the the calendar leafed through to the start of November I recalled a message I received from a friend months prior, in which she relayed a dream she had had, where I was pregnant, and due in November. She had communicated that she felt this was metaphorical, that I was ready to birth something spiritual. It felt like things were clicking into place. I worked pretty solidly behind the scenes for about a fortnight, and then life – as it is apt to do – intruded and took up space and this was put on the back-burner for a while. But November’s chapter is nearly closed, and this baby is well overdue, so I’m doing the final push. Even though I feel like I’m not *quite* ready to raise a child again, I know from experience that as long as you love them well, feed them, and keep them safe from harm, there’s not much else to it (aside from sleepless nights, early mornings, and a whole lot of shit… so – very similar to writing).
So here I am, and here you are, and here is some of my heart on a virtual page. What can you expect here? I think the name says it all: Poet. Pilgrim. Ponderer of all Things. You can probably expect me to share more of my creative writing here (that’s the Poet), you can expect me to share more of my faith and life journey (that’s the Pilgrim), and you can expect me from time-to-time to ask questions, and write about stuff I probably have no business writing about (that’s the Ponderer). I don’t have grand intentions for international fame and fortune, I’m just following my curiosity and taking you along for the ride. In the process I hope and pray my words can help bring freedom, change, and healing – that’s audacious I know, but there it is!
Most of my old posts are still up, so feel free to dig into the archives a bit (but really, for someone who has been blogging for 3.5 years, I don’t have much content to show for it!). But before you go, a few things:
In the transition to this space and updating my Disqus profile (the plugin I use for comments) I somehow lost all the comments that had been accumulated over the years. Whist not a huge disaster, it does make the comment sections look very sad and neglected, so feel free to leave some comment-love around the place! (I might be able to recover them, I’m still trying to figure that out – no biggie!)
You will notice a new page here: The Priscillas. This is the other half of my ‘baby’ (but maybe we should end the birth and baby metaphors here and not speak of babies as being in halves!). I’ll be sharing more here about this in the coming days – I’m pretty excited about this one, but it needs a whole post of its own.
General maintenance will still be occurring as I fine-tune a few things here and there, so don’t be too surprised to find things shuffled around a bit (because I know how much your daily survival depends on the layout of my website, right?)
Well that’s it, for now! I’m super-thrilled to be able to share things with you under my own name, thanks for joining me for the ride!
I’ll see you back here soon,
Bree.xo
