05/16/2025: Nancy Day 1

After a busy day of solo travel, I’m finally back in nature, at the very same cabin Caleb and I came to for the very first time years ago. It’s nice to return to a familiar place where we made unforgettable memories before. 

I went to a book launch party last night before I left Colorado, and I got a little sad thinking about potentially leaving the life we know in Denver behind to realize our dreams, especially the creative outlets we’ve found and the communities we’ve become a part of. And then that made me think about how up to this point in my life, every major milestone has been measured by almost two years, but never two years or more. I either moved on or gave up - on jobs mostly - by the time a year and a half rolled around. I don’t know if that’s some subconscious fear I had of getting stuck doing something I didn’t want to do, or just an odd coincidence. I know it’s fairly common to jump around every two or so years, but it just bothers me that I’ve always done less time than that, with my old college job, my payroll job, and so on. 

I may be leaving the city before I can reach the two year mark at my writing place, the place where I’ve gotten so much done and met so many amazing people that are doing the things I’m doing, that understand and support me. And that makes me sad. But then I thought about how long I’ve been chasing this writing dream, and I realize that this is the first endeavor that I’ve put two years into - and counting - with no plans to stop. And that makes me happy. It makes me feel like I’m actually on to something, and I’m so excited to see where I end up. 

I spent the week putting in the time, plugging away at a passable-very-rough-draft-slash-first-of-infinite- passes at a novel manuscript, and after 68,000 of my own words have been put onto about 107 pages, I’m just floored. I was so happy to print it out and hold it, to feel that sense of accomplishment that this story came out of me, and that I have so much more to say. And for the first time since I started writing again, I feel more motivated than ever, and I know I can do this. 

I proved I can put in the work over the last two weeks, and I’m convinced that getting sick was actually the greatest thing that’s happened to me in a while, because it put that fire back in me that I was trying to find again.