Hello, dear reader... if one remains.
Why would you? After all this time...
Do you know what I had to go through to find my way back here? A forgotten identity; forgotten platform; forgotten passwords. I only remembered that once I wrote, and it made me feel like a writer.
I was a writer.
Once upon a time, there was a girl named Kwirki.
Only, I had even forgotten her name. The girl was long gone. A middle-aged woman took her place-- One with gray hair and some extra pounds; One who has been without her father/hero for over three years and is caring for her aging mother; One whose sedate life is unrecognizable to the girl of her old stories, thankfully.
She never married-- never found that great love. She suffered other betrayals, but the worst was how she betrayed herself. Betraying herself was how the other betrayals happened in the first place.
The funny thing about having your prayers answered, is that it's usually painful in some way. A sacrifice is needed to make room for the gain. A job is lost. Friends disappear. Environments shift, yet God is there, saying, "See. I told you I would get you here."
Here is a place where you no longer lean on a self-destructive vice to feel sociable and alive.
Here is a place where the company you keep doesn't encourage your ruin alongside their own.
Here is a place where you finally belong and trust those alongside you.
And I didn't make any of it happen by choice. It happened through prayer.
But then, prayer is a choice, too, isn't it?
A choice to give up control, or admit you never had it in the first place.
A choice to say, "I'm beyond my capabilities. I know what I should do, but I can't do it. I give it to You to make happen; whatever it takes."
And He says, "Are you sure? Because I have something in mind..."
So, you give Him permission to do what He will, and He takes it. You're broken by it. No, it's more like the crusty shell from an untended infection breaking down. Peeling it from the skin stings. Some flesh may tear, but what is underneath is clean. It can breathe now. It can heal. It will become fresh and new again.
Suddenly then, in the midst of this new life... in the midst of writing a first novel -- about a protagonist trying to escape her shame in all the wrong ways-- the girl named Kwirki came back to the author's memory through a fog. More importantly, the memory of now-nameless readers who allowed her room to craft her style and who encouraged her voice. A community of unique voices. She missed that, so she went on a mission to track down the old blog, hoping to find remnants of you, but found her old self waiting as well.
What a poor, measly self she was, too. There's no condemnation in saying that, but there is an avalanche of regret. Regret that she didn't value herself.
... Something that some of you saw, and expressed, at the time.
Twenty years, friends. Over twenty years have gone by. Comments from my last post over ten years ago asked where I had gone. It turns out, I suppose, that I didn't know who I was if I wasn't writing about some tragic disappointment or heartbreak. That's when the words poured out of me. Now, words also come with joys. I am learning how share more than sad stories.
But now I wonder....
....where did you all go?
The old friends I made... the voices I treasured.
The community we shared.
Have lost your way from the person you were, too, and the stories you shared?
I hope you are well. I hope you find your way to this blog to look in on ol' Kwirk. She would love to see you and swap stories, again.