How have you been doing in recent months?

First off, please allow me to extend my deepest and most appreciative heartfelt thanks to all those who reached out to me in the months spanning my post about the sudden end of my nearly 18-year marriage and the present day.

Your soul-touching support, compassion, kindness, empathy, relaying of personal stories involving your own very difficult relationship issues and breakups over the years, and so much more have bolstered + helped me a good deal (and still continue to, for that matter).

Secondly, in the midst of everything that has been transpiring in my life lately, I completely forgot that back in the late spring/early summer, I penned and scheduled some blog posts which were originally intended to go live in either July or August.

In the midst of contending with the unforeseen events of July 2022, I ended up bumping them ahead all the way to December and then promptly (and, I think you will agree, rather understandably!) 110% forgetting that I had done so.

It wasn’t until I saw a flurry of new blog comments suddenly come in recently that I realized these long auto-scheduled posts had unintentionally gone live this month.

My bad all the way!

Not that there is anything wrong with sharing these posts now (or at any point in time). There certainly is not.

It is just that I fully intended for my first post since this past July to be a brief life update, not a project share or other type of entry.

Therefore, I sincerely apologize that things played out how they did. Just as I do to all those readers who I know were wondering why a life update post had not happened before I launched back into more of my usual type of blogging content.

With those points said, please allow me to now give you a little overview of how some things have unfolded for me in recent months.

In the time since the post about the sudden breakdown of my marriage, I was very fortunate to find housing for myself and (my dog) Annie.

After a ton of searching and applying to various rental properties across much of the Okanagan and Lower Shuswap Valleys, I was extremely fortunate to ultimately sign a lease on a lovely little townhouse all to ourselves.

It is located in a larger town roughly 25 minutes away from the small, rural community of Armstrong, BC, where Tony and I had been residing since moving there together in early 2018.

Working largely at the same breakneck speed I had undertaken throughout July and early August to get our entire house packed up, spic-and-span clean, staged for viewings, listed for sale, and so forth, from mid-August to mid-September, I quickly unpacked and set up my new home.

It was – and still is – tremendously strange, sad, and foreign feeling for me to assemble the trappings of each room of a house that is simply for myself (and Annie). Every home from the second half of 2004 onward until this summer was one that Tony and I shared as husband and wife.

As the summer wore on, the initial state of mind-blowing shock, the gargantuan sudden upsets to my life, and the intense feelings of unprecedented blindsidedness began to decrease.

Naturally, though, a vast amount of internal pain, grief, longing, trauma processing, and life rebuilding remain part of my daily world and will no doubt continue to for quite some time still to come.

One does not have the proverbial rug of a marriage they cherished and believed would be eternal – coupled, moreover, with the loss of the person they love/loved, valued, cared about, respected, desired, would have done almost anything for, and trusted more than anybody else in the world – pulled out from under them and magically bounce back with the dexterity of a rubber band.

Far from it.

The thought occurred to me recently that my initial unfathomably brutal heartache and emotional/mental/physical/spiritual pain was/is akin to a very serious acute injury. And, you know, in many ways it is.

However, as time leaps ever forward and the disbelief, marathon cries that often spanned or totaled anywhere from 5 – 14+ hours per day in the initial months (I still continue to cry frequently, though especially long periods of weeping are not, at present, as common for me as they were in the summer and early fall), and the bigger picture of the reality that is my current life all came to be, that pain has gradually morphed into a state that could be looked upon more as a chronic illness of sorts.

(As someone who has been a fighter of over 15 different serious chronic illnesses for more than two decades now, I know from which I speak.)

That does not automatically mean this state of internal health and, likewise, that of my life, in general, will remain entrenched in the deepest, darkest bowels of heartache, grief, longing, and endless reflections on the past for all of time.

And yet, that said, one never fully gets over trauma of this magnitude. A loss this hard-hitting, devastating, and brutally painful.

The experience of witnessing the person I would have gladly taken a bullet for walk out of my/our life in the blink of a tear-filled eye.

The dissipation of a future I firmly believed would be shared and treasured together and the overall pain of an ordeal this earth-shattering will remain with me – at least in part – always.

As, personally, I believe these things (and many others related to this year’s events) should.

In surviving the most hellacious, stressful, hurtful, and challenging periods of our lives, we (hopefully!) learn, grow, and come to see life through wider eyes and with an even more tender heart.

In a ton of different ways, I am a radically different person today than I was before the events of this past July.

Many positive changes have happened organically, others were a conscious decision to approach things in a better, healthier/healing light. And plenty more still were a blend of both organic and conscious efforts.

For, never have I hurt more.

Never have I grown more in the span of just a few brief months.

Never have I longed for anyone (Tony) or anything (our marriage) more in my entire life. Not by the length of the universe.

Never have I so bravely taken hold of the reigns of a profoundly difficult situation and been able to re-establish my basic needs (i.e., safe housing) again as quickly.

Never have I yearned to turn back the hands of time and with the crystal-clear clarity of hindsight alter the past (for the better) more than in the wake of this summer’s crushing events.

Never have I been stronger.

Never have I wished more that an event (the – from my perspective at least – incredibly abrupt end of our beloved, sacred, one-of-kind marriage) in my/our life had not occurred (and that it would never have occurred, in an ideal world).

Never, for months on end, have I consciously had to choose quite as hard to some-inexplicable-how keep going when I was certain that death would hurt (me) infinitely less than what I was enduring in that excruciatingly difficult moment.

Never have I pined for someone even 1/1,000,000,000 as much as I do for Tony.

I wake up every day and continue to expect him to be right there beside me (or at least under the same roof). I experience something comparable to a phantom limb-like sensation of his hand in mind, feel his strong, protective arms around my body and his tender lips upon my own.

I hear his gorgeous Italian voice and his wonderfully infectious laugh. Feel the warmth of his soul reverting joyfully in synch with mine, see the wise and witty twinkle in his deep chocolate-hued eyes, listen to him pull into the driveway, snuggle together as we watch our favourite movies and TV series, face each of life’s challenges and positives alike as a mighty, love fuelled couple.

These things and countless others echo throughout my every breath and heartbeat.

With a few exceptions, though (for example, thankfully the two of us have remained on amicable terms and do interact periodically for various reasons, so I still get to see and hear Tony in person from time to time), I am phenomenally, soul-crushingly aware of the fact that they are no more.

And that, in turn, somehow I must – and already am – find(ing) the ability to exist without them. Without Tony as my darling husband, my lover, my best friend, my rock, my soulmate. Just as I must go on without our shared existence.

Both despite and, I firmly believe, because of the highly challenging difficulties of this year, I’ve actually made massive positive strides on the mental health front.

(I have experienced major depression, various types of anxiety, and some PTSD for much of my entire life. Though, mercifully, at this point in time, I’ve almost entirely healed from the latter. )

As a result, ironically, it could be said, I am currently in a healthier, more stable place on the mental health front than I have been in longer than I can precisely recall (think 10+ years – if not more like 20+ years).

From late September (2022) onward, I have begun to experience days of zero depression (often coupled with a huge reduction in anxiety as well).

Zip, zilch, nil, nada. Not a single iota.

I had all but completely forgotten what a state of being completely free of depression felt like.

It is, in some respects, akin to breathing pure air of the cleanest and freshest variety after decades of existing on bottled oxygen.

Not every day is completely depression free (yet?). However, even when that all-too-familiar state of mental being resurfaces, it almost always does so at a drastically lower level than what had become long become my norm for many years.

Whereas countless periods throughout my life were spent somewhere between 7 – 10 on the depression scale (with ten being the highest possible level), these days when it pops up here and there, it does so in the 1 – 2.5, maybe 3, max, range.  

In fact, it is so drastically reduced that I am finding these sorts of vastly lower levels of depression/melancholy have little to no impact whatsoever as far as I can perceive on my internal state, my day-to-day life, my interactions and relationships with others, and plenty of other things both big and small alike.

I routinely stop and marvel at this previously unimaginable change (sometimes it brings me to the point of shedding tears of happiness and gratitude). This current mental health miracle and the renewed zest for life (relative to everything that has been going on as of late) that it has firmly instilled in me once more.

That said, I am very aware that mental health challenges rarely follow a linear path. Be it in terms of their development or, when possible, their treatment/lessening/remission/healing.

Therefore, I fully accept that there may be (and feel that I am now considerably better prepared to face) potential future spikes in my depression, should they occur going forward from this year.

It is safe to say that there are usually myriad factors that contribute to a person experiencing serious ongoing depression (for me, most of my depression has always been situationally caused). And likely there are just as many – if not more – that must go into its reduction for those who experience this very real, very life-impacting mental health battle.

While, OF COURSE!!!, depression is obviously not something one can turn on or off like a light switch (far from it), I do think that in a fair number of instances there are steps that can be undertaken to help lessen its severity.

Personally, I knew that if I had a snowball’s chance of not only somehow surviving, but in time (I hope and pray with every ounce of my being) thriving again, it would be borderline impossible for me to do so while living on my own if my depression + anxiety were raging out of control.

Without the aid of any harmful substances, risky or self-destructive behaviours, or various other negative choices one could opt for, as I started to gradually piece my world back together again, I reexamined not only my life + myself in general but also my mental state.

In doing so, I began to realize there were quite a few mindsets, approaches to life, thought processes, elements of my daily existence, and so forth that were contributing undesirably to my mental health that I could either part ways with entirely or reduce/alter significantly enough for them to further help improve the innermost workings of my ol’ grey matter.

Recently, I wrote something to my dear sister, which I feel fits perfectly in the course of this post as well. Thus, I am going to share it essentially verbatim with all of you as well.

Every now and then, YouTube suggests a clip from the TV show Hoarders to me and I will sometimes watch it when that occurs.

In one of them I saw somewhat recently, a clinical psychologist they have featured many times over the years (Dr. Robin Zasio) said a line that resonated with me immediately: “I don’t know why people have to get so broken to heal, but that’s what happened with you.”

She spoke these words in relation to the hoarder they were trying to help, but I feel like that statement applies immensely to me as well. 

In what surely stands as the most painfully ironic series of events in my entire life, it would take being shattered into billions upon billions of infinitesimally small pieces and experiencing pain so searing it would make swimming in molten lava feel like doing a polar bear dip by comparison to start healing/improving some of the most challenging aspects of my existence. 

The past 5.5 months have been the absolute worst, most difficult, painful, stressful, and heartbreaking of my entire existence by an enormous mile. Virtually nothing of any importance about them has felt right, familiar, normal, comforting, easy, or complete. 

Sometime around late August, however, a thought occurred to me that I had never really had before. 

Just about every time prior in my entire life when something massive had come along that shattered my/our world (or a shattered a solid chunk of it at least), my gut instinct was to immediately scramble to put the pieces back together as close to the way they had been arranged before that event occurred. 

(One example of this is how in the immediate aftermath of the 2016 arson fire, without even stopping to give it conscious consideration, I instinctually thought that I needed to start building up a vintage/repro wardrobe again without pausing to ask myself if that was actually what my heart most wanted to do at that point in time.)

Objectively, I think that this reaction and approach are innate to most humans and that they are not necessarily bad/negative things in many instances.

The thought that struck me like a million tsunami waves crashing into my mind at the same time was, “What if instead of trying to piece back together everything that is shattered, you held onto the best/most important parts and strove to rearrange, remove, or replace, as applicable, the rest?”.

It was – and is – a concept both plainly simple and extraordinarily challenging. And yet, that is precisely what I have attempted – and will continue to actively do – to the best of my abilities.

~*~*~*~*~*~

I could easily fill a book the size of which would give War and Peace a run for its money discussing elements of this year’s life-altering events.

Sometimes though, it is best to know when to put the breaks on for the present moment and I feel like the above paragraphs are a solid place to do just that.

Now, those two (again) completely unintentionally published project share posts + this one itself aside, you may be wondering about my long-term plans for this blog.

I have not reached a point yet in my healing/trauma processing/life-rebuilding journey that would even begin to facilitate engaging in our wonderful blogging community + posting at my pre-July 2022 level again (which averaged 4 – 6 entries per month).

And though my new dedicated craft space has been set up since this September, I have not created a single paper crafting project since before this summer’s devastating events.

I will not make any promises at the moment regarding my blogging plans/schedule in the near to quasi-near future. That would not be fair to either of us.

However, what I will say is that, if possible, I would like to *try* to post at least one new entry here roughly every 4 – 10ish weeks throughout the initial (and possibly longer than that) months of 2023.

So whether I one day return to a similar pre-marriage-breakdown blog posting level or opt to share entries here somewhat less frequently, in the long run, I do intend to put more new content up on this site. Yay!

That is a welcome thought which makes me smile on a great many levels (as does thinking about the day when my MIA paper crafting mojo returns).

Thank you all again beyond words for your kind, extremely caring support and understanding in recent months.

I am certain that this year would have been notably more challenging for me were it not for your thoughtfulness.

Let me wrap up this post (hey, wait, wasn’t this supposed to be a small life update? Evidently, in true Autumn form, I couldn’t stop at just a tiny handful of paragraphs ) by wishing all of you the sweetest, safest, happiest, healthiest, and most magic(k)al of holiday seasons.

Whatever you celebrate, whatever you hold dear, whatever brings you inner joy this month, may these things and many other positives number more for you than all of the snowflakes that will tumble to the ground across the world this chilly season.

Merriest festive season and nothing but the best and brightest to each of you for 2023!

The post A Big Apology to All of my Readers and a Small Life Update appeared first on Witchcrafted Life.

That much is public knowledge, but what wasn’t shared online back then is that I spent much of January 1, 2020 at the ER of our nearest hospital. My husband’s kidney issues were flaring fiercely at the time and he required emergency care.

In the coming weeks, he would undergo two surgeries, one at that same hospital, the other in Vancouver.

At the time, I was struck by what an unforgettable way to begin the year that was and wondered if it foreshadowed a sense of what 2020 held in-store for us.

Suffice it to say, it did.

There were challenges and stresses, health concerns, our collective new normal, self-isolating, social distancing, and both losing and finding ourselves in myriad ways across the span of a year that felt more like twenty.

As much as I could talk at length about the year that just was, honestly, I think it serves both myself and my readers better if we look ahead.

That said, before we proceed further, I want to take a moment to offer my deepest sympathies to anyone who experienced loss or pain, trauma, heartache, stress, impacts on their health (mental health very much included), struggled in ways they never could have foreseen, or otherwise took a punch in the gut from 2020.

It was brutal and real, flawed and frightening, and utterly, profoundly unforgettable.

If you’re blessed to have made it this far, you were stronger and tougher than 2020. You did incredibly!

It wasn’t easy – isn’t easy still. It wasn’t straightforward or simple, nor was it like anything most of us had ever experienced.

You tried, hoped, held on, cried, lost, and managed to keep going.

In short, you did your best, gave it your all, coped however you could, and held tight as the roller coaster that was 2020 took on a ride that will impact us for the rest of our lives.

I am proud of you. And, moreover, you should be proud of yourself, you warrior, you!

Witchcrafted Life’s 1^st birthday

There is something rather profound and meaningful in a blog reaching its first birthday.

It is proof of concept come to life.

The knowledge that while your site might not be the oldest or most famous or highest trafficked in all the land, it is no longer a brand new babe-in-arms either.

In the tree truck that is a website’s life, you’ve earned your first ring.

Through each difficulty and challenge, tough day and tougher night of 2020, this blog was a rock for me.

There were times, I won’t lie, when I wondered if I could keep going with it.

When my health hit me extra hard, when stress pushed down upon my world, when I was as drained as an empty Olympic swimming pool.

I never questioned the decision to start Witchcrafted Life. I did wonder at times though, if it would live to see its first birthday. And for that matter, if I would either.

Yet, the more the storms of life raged on, the tighter my grip held firm. I let the waves crash over me and accepted when the bad days put me out of commission.

Whether I wrote 6,000 words a day (which I did multiple times) or was lucky to squeeze in 1,000 into a given week, I was, and am, grateful and happy and more than a little bit in love with running this website.

Your supportive comments, both here and on Instagram fuelled me on.

Each new season and sabbat, fuelled me on.

Every craft project I made and shared fuelled me on.

The sense that this was only just the beginning of something even more wonderful (for this blog/my life/my future) fuelled me on.

As did each fresh post idea, email I received from a reader, and spark of inspiration that came my way.

I knew when I began WitchcraftedLife.com that I needed blogging in my world again. What I could never have foreseen one year ago to the day, however, was just how much I would not only needed, but wanted it as well.

And, clearly, as you can see, I didn’t toss in the towel, didn’t let my the roughest present moments rob me of the potential that lies in all of my tomorrows.

I’ve long learned that one rarely knows how long a given blog or website will be online, nor what might cause its eventual conclusion.

It would be foolheartedly to say outright that I plan to run this site for the next ten, twenty, or more years. There is simply no way of knowing if that will be the case

As 2020 drove home more so than ever, all we have in the moment and hope for those that lie ahead.

I am fully committed to this site. Even when, at times, I may question my ability to keep going with it, I am devoted to Witchcrafted Life to the best of my abilities.

It fills me with tremendous joy to reach Witchcrafted Life’s first blogging anniversary. To toast to a year of life under its proverbial belt, and to look forward to what I hope will be an awesome second year of blogging.

Seven things I plan to do for Witchcrafted Life in 2021

1. Keep up my posting frequency of at least 1 new entry per week. I did so every week of 2020, and while I’m accepting that sometimes circumstances (or the conscious choice – such as a mini blogging break, holiday, etc) may prevent that from playing out, my aim is to hit that target as often as possible.

2. Take craft project photos that I’m happier with. If you have been here for a while, you’ve likely heard me gripe a bit about (what I consider to be) the subpar photo quality of my most of my project images.

To date, I’ve been taking my photos with a cell phone camera, usually at night, and using basic (tungsten) overhead lighting in our dimly lit house. Not a winning combo in this instance, let me tell you.

The photos I’ve taken and posted aren’t, IMO, terrible, they’re just not at the level I want them to be.

We (my husband is also a passionate – and very talented – photographer) lost a lifetime’s worth of photography equipment in the arson fire we experienced, and have not been in a position yet to replace most of it.

Little by little though, I’m going to purchase or make (e.g., reflectors, backdrops, etc) what I can in 2021 and beyond, and hope that within a matter of months, I can start sharing project photos here that I’m a lot happier with the quality of (fingers crossed!).

3. Continue to expand the diversity of topics that I cover here. From Graveyard Snow Magick to Ancestral DNA Testing, The Ultimate List of Things to Put in Shaker Cards to 31 Ways to Celebrate Halloween All Year, we definitely covered a wide range of subjects during Witchcrafted Life’s first year.

I hope/plan to bring you even more topic diversity this year and beyond, and am always open to suggestions if there’s anything you’d be interested in seeing me write about here.

4. Make more projects that aren’t “just” cards and scrapbook pages. Like many a paper crafter, these are my top two favourite and most commonly made types of projects.

However, I really enjoy things like tags, mini albums, canvases, handmade gift wrapping, party décor, and much more that falls under the broad header of paper crafting.

In particular, mini albums have been calling my name something fierce lately, so I’m hoping to create some new ones in the coming year.

5. Use photos that I did not take in some of my posts. When I began this blog, I thought it would be both fun and challenging to create the photos for every post (or at least very nearly so) that I publish.

It was, and is. However, I’ve come to realize that sometimes a post might be served just as well, or better, by included images from other people, too.

Always, of course, using public domain, copywrite free, purchased stock, or otherwise legally permissible images, of course.

In doing so, I hope that I can help to provide even more applicable and appealing visuals for the content that I write.

That said, I still plan to create the photos and/or graphics for many (if not most) of my blog posts – especially since I like to have an original photo of my own that I can share on Instagram when discussing a given blog post there.

6. Share more about myself here. I think that, perhaps more than ever these days, a lot of bloggers put a major emphasis on creating evergreen content.

This is understandable and there is nothing wrong with doing so. I too strive to create a fair number of posts that will remain helpful and relevant for ages to come, and which are apt to be well indexed in search engines.

However, I feel that it is important for bloggers to let their personalities and certain facets of their lives shine through in (at least) some of their posts as well.

I’ve done that at times on WCL, and want to keep opening up about who I am and what my life is like here with you even more as this blog embraces its second year of life.

7. Share further content aimed at new witches. Like many a witch who puts themselves out there in the public sphere, I get a lot of emails and DMs from beginner witches or those who are looking to expand their practice.

A number of the same types of questions surface time and time again, so I’m planning to turn some of them into detailed posts that can both help those who are Googling for these subjects and individuals who contact me directly about about a particular topic.

Again, if there’s anything you’d be keen to see a post about, please don’t hesitate to let me know in the comments below (or anytime via email).

Here’s to everything that 2021 holds in store for us

In his beautiful poem “Dreams” the American poet Langston Hughes included the moving words, “Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly”.

As much as last year turned many of our lives on their heads, as we bravely step into the fresh new year that is 2021, I encourage you to hold fast to your hopes and dreams.

Be kind and patient with yourself and others. Be safe and try to employ common sense at every turn. Know that while tomorrow is a mystery in some senses, even in the darkest of times, certain universal principles apply to our existence.

Take comfort in the familiar, in the good that remains (and which you can generate), allow yourself to grieve and heal for as long as your soul needs; and remain realistically optimistic that there may be good things waiting in store for us over the next twelve months.

And know that, barring the truly unforeseen, I have every intention to be here, same place, same date, next year for Witchcrafted Life’s 2^nd birthday.

Let’s make 2021 the best, safest, and happiest year that we can.

Together, we’ve got this.

The post Happy 1st birthday, Witchcrafted Life – plus 7 things I’m planning for this blog in 2021 appeared first on Witchcrafted Life.

My history of running personal websites stretches all the way back to 2004. The world and the web were both very different places then – as one would expect after a sixteen-year period in this fast-paced day and age that we live in.

Between then and now, I’ve had the pleasure of helming a handful of different websites and blogs. Thus far, the longest-running were active for eight and just shy of ten years, respectively.

I retired my last blog, which focused on vintage fashion and history, in March 2017. Doing so was gut-wrenchingly difficult. I agonized over the decision for months. It tore at my very core to walk away from something that I had poured my heart and soul, endless hours and untold amounts of energy into for such a long time.

And yet, in respect to the circumstances of my life and health at the time, I knew that retiring that website was the wisest choice for me in that moment. While I’ve often missed it and the awesome vintage blogging community that existed at the time, I’ve never regretted my choice.

In the nearly three years between when that blog was retired and when Witchcrafted Life sprang into being, I thought a great deal about if I would ever return to blogging again – and if I did, what kind of site I would create.

As time went on, guided by the universe, I came to realize that A) I definitely wanted and needed to return to blogging and B) I was going to do combine two of the most important aspects of my life – Paganism/witchery and paper crafting – as the primary topics that my new site would cover.

Despite those who are quick to decry as much, I do not believe that blogging as a medium is dead. I would never have started the very site that you’re now reading if I believed as much.

Has blogging changed substantially since the 2000s and early to mid-2010s? Absolutely.

Have a lot of people retired, abandoned or removed their blogs in recent years? You bet!

But that doesn’t mean that blogging has given up the ghost. Many folks who have been blogging for ages continue to do so and no shortage of new blogs pop up every year.

WitchcraftedLife.com is born

At the start of this year, I became one of those people. Again.

And the “again” is important, because WCL is not my first blog or website. Yes, I’d been out of the game (save for guest blogging) for a while, but much like riding a bike, blogging is something that you don’t just suddenly forget how to do.

For every “what if” thought, trepidation, and valid concern that my mind could dream up when I contemplated the idea of returning to blogging, a voice deep inside reminded me that I had a substantial amount of past experience to draw on.

At one point, I was blogging professionally with my vintage site. It was my full-time job (and then some!), and to say that I gave it 110% would be an honest-to-goodness understatement.

Yet, I didn’t (and don’t) want blogging to currently consume my every waking hour. There can be a lot of pros, perks and positives to taking that “I’m all in” sort of approach, but it can also be astronomically draining, stressful and difficult to maintain without running the risk of legitimate burnout.

In life, knowing what we don’t want is often every bit as important – if not more so – than knowing what we do, and it was critical for me that I set some personal boundaries before I kicked off a brand new site.

I knew that I needed to find a healthy balance between blogging and my offline life. I knew that as sharing homemade craft projects would play a key role in this website’s existence, I would need to factor in time and energy to create.

And I knew that as a multi-chronic illness fighter, the immense uncertainty of my health would need to be accounted for in respect to my posting frequency and the overall blogging related workload that I took on.

I was also aware that the blogging world, while not yet having succumbed to the fate of the dinosaurs, had changed a fair bit in recent years.

In a world where social media and video content (YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok, etc) hold more sway and have higher user counts than ever, it can be genuinely challenging to grow a blog – especially one that combines not just a single niche topic, but two.

Nothing about my decision to return to blogging was rushed or done haphazardly – if anything, as my patience-of-a-saint husband will attest to, I likely overthought and over-disucssed the mother lovin’ heck out of things!

No matter how much one knows about a subject, plans and prepares for, things can – and often will – unfold differently than you expected. That’s life in a nutshell.

And I was ready for that. Ready for the trials and tribulations, positives, stresses, joys, challenges, adventures, and connections that blogging offers.

As soon as I felt ready to blog again, the name Witchcrafted Life came to me.

It was time.

I was prepared.

And so on the very first day of the first month of the first year of the new decade, this website went live.

Why I returned to blogging in 2020

From the moment I mastered the alphabet as a child, I began to write and I haven’t stopped since. What began as journaling and stories jotted down in crayon morphed into notebooks of teenage poetry and on to an adulthood that has been filled with more written words than I could ever begin to count.

Many, though not all, have been digital – as is true for a lot writers these days. We use the tools and mediums of our times, and that means things like blogs, websites, online magazines, and social media.

Writing gives me more of a voice than the one that exists my own mouth. It is joy and strength, empowerment and creativity for me.

I can picture my existence without countless things, even those of a basic needs level, but I genuinely cannot fathom a world in which I wasn’t writing in some capacity.

While I had other outlets, online and off, to write in between my previous blog and this one, including Instagram, few gave me the free reign, character count, or ability to captain my own creative ship the way that blogging does.

I returned because I love to write, need to write, start to go stir crazy if I don’t write in some capacity online or off.

But that wasn’t the only reason. After all, there are other ways to write besides blogging.

I also returned because I wanted to share my knowledge and passion on the topics that are at the heart of this blog, to connect with others who share those passions, and to help support and inspire people around the world to be true to themselves and their own innate creativity + inner magic(k).

It is my hope that blogging will also allow me to reach certain goals that are very important to me – including becoming a published book author.

Returning to blogging wasn’t a decision I made lightly. I had watched as hundreds of blogs on an array of topics that I enjoy shuttered their doors or were simply abandoned (zero judgement there, I promise you – I get it, I really do).

I knew that far fewer people were commenting on many blogs and that the community that had once helped to foster, nurture and support the growth of a lot of sites within a given niche wasn’t likely to be as extensive as it had once been.

In a sea of Buzzfeed lists, memes, tweets and selfies, blogging can look and feel downright antiquated at times. Yet, in many respects, the purposes that it serves and the reach it extends are greater and more important than ever.

Blogging is, generally, far less ethereal than the “here one moment, buried under five thousand new posts the next” realm of social media.

It might not generate something that is physically tangible, but it creates words that are crawled and indexed by search engines, that are not capped at 280 or 2,200 characters, and which can quickly and easily be linked to by other websites.

Compared to the temporary nature of many different digital platforms, blogging almost seems weighty.

It has substance and packs a punch (as can, please don’t get me wrong, SM and the like at times, too). It can be Googled and it allows a certain sort of creative freedom that, to my mind, other digital platforms are hard-pressed to top.

And you know what, I like blogging. In fact, I love blogging.

It can drive one up the wall and back again at times – but there are few things worth doing in life for which that isn’t the case.

Blogging is rewarding and fun. It excites me, it inspires me, it allows me to connect all the more with those who share my interests.

I know from experience that it also has the potential to blossom into so much more than just the sum of its parts.

The opportunities, skills, networking, friendships, collaborations, and other positives that can stem from blogging are invaluable for many of us who opt to steer our own vessels through the vast waters of the internet.

I returned to blogging because I have so much more that I want to say, share, learn, teach, and, I hope, both inspire others with and be inspired by.

Why did I create this paganism meets paper crafting blog?

As this post winds down, I’d like to take a moment to mention that while there is plenty of overlap between the two, the reasons why I returned to blogging point blank and the specific reasons why I started a site dedicated to both Paganism and paper crafting do differ in some respects.

For example, one of the driving forces behind this site coming into being is that it is very important for me to be an example of, and voice for, those who consider themselves “alternative” crafters or who don’t always feel that they or they work are/is fully accepted within their respective crafting sphere.

I know full well what it’s like to feel that way. Let’s face it, there aren’t a ton of Pagan paper crafters out there – let alone ones who are blogging about it.

Helping in my own small way to encourage others to always craft – and march – to the beat of their own drum, is incredibly near and dear to my heart.

This desire was one of a handful of key reasons behind why I launched a blog that covers the topics of both witchery/Paganism and paper crafting.

Some of the others were discussed in my inaugural post, and other still will likely be explored in greater detail here as time goes on.

How long will I blog for?

It is impossible to know how long Witchcrafted Life will be online for. I’ve learned that how and when websites and blog conclude rarely happens how we might have imagined.

I sincerely hope that this blog will have an extensive and wonderful life during which it is able to be of benefit, and bring supportive positivity, to many who encounter it.

That is my goal, my commitment, and my plan.

I didn’t spend more than two years contemplating whether to blog again (and what specifically it was that I was going to blog about) to dip my toes into the water once more and then promptly retreat back to dry land.

Nope, I’m all in.

This blog matters a great deal to me – as do the people who visit and help to support it.

And with all of my heart, I thank each person who engages with this website in any way. You are appreciated and valued beyond measure.

I returned to blogging for a multitude of reasons, and I have no doubt that others still to emerge will help ensure that I remain here for a good long while.

Which reminds me, I’ve got a new post to write, so I best get cracking.

The post Why I Returned to Blogging appeared first on Witchcrafted Life.