This is Hard.

The most difficult part of telling a story is deciding where to begin.

“The beginning” is always a safe bet, unless you know how long my stories can be.

“Start Somewhere” is another bit of conventional wisdom that I often find just as baffling as it is helpful, until I remember that ‘here’ is ‘somewhere’ too.

So. Here it is. And it just so happens that Here feels like (yet another) beginning of sorts. Starting Over.

The most difficult part of starting over is remembering all the ways you screwed up the last (four or five) time(s) you began, and trying not to do that again. But screwing up is part of starting anything. It’s part of learning.

So, of all the stories I thought I would tell, it turns out the only cohesive one I’ve got right now is about how I’m trying to start over, trying to screw up, trying to NOT screw up (as much or again), and trying to be ok with a certain amount of screwing up. And it’s not much of a story.

This is hard.  Everything I’m starting, everything I’m remembering, doing my best and trying to give myself grace when my best is not good enough—it’s all hard.

I keep telling myself it will get easier. Some of it. Maybe all of it. Until then, this is what I’ve got.