Still Here

On returning to old writing, and deciding to stay with it

Recently, one of my posts travelled further than I expected. It ended up on TikTok, then led people to Instagram, and eventually, here.

That part didn’t worry me. I’ve written openly for years. About divorce. About mental health. About changing direction in mid-life. There isn’t much I’m trying to hide.

What unsettled me was something quieter.

The writing.

Coming back to this blog after years of working as a corporate writer, I began to notice things I had once skimmed past. Sentences that sagged. Grammar that slipped. Paragraphs that wandered without landing. The kinds of things I now help other people fix.

At work, colleagues come to me for proofreading. I found myself imagining them stumbling onto some of these older posts. The thought stayed with me longer than I expected.

There were ninety-two posts.

Editing them one by one felt heavy, so I didn’t start. I let the task sit there, unfinished, until the attention from outside made the neglect harder to ignore.

That was when I decided to ask for help.

I let the first pass be done elsewhere, slowly enough that I could stay present, quickly enough that I wouldn’t stall. One post at a time. I stayed close to the work.

I stayed responsible.

I remained the editor.

What I asked for was simple. Clearer sentences. Better flow. Fewer distractions. No new ideas. No rewriting my past. Just helping the writing stand a little straighter.

Organisation came later. Tables. Lists. Reassigning old posts into fewer, more intentional categories.

Reading through all ninety-two posts felt like walking through rooms I once lived in. Some felt unfamiliar. Some were tender. A few still hurt.

I felt proud of that earlier version of myself. The one who kept writing anyway.

I don’t know if my thirty-eight subscribers are still around. If you are, thank you. This blog carried me through years when things felt especially dark. Even quietly, it mattered.