To You, My Reader —

 

My Dearest Reader,

Hi, love. It’s been a while.

I don’t know how else to begin other than thank you. For reading. For staying. For returning to my words even when I wasn’t always sure I still had them in me. Every click, every message, every email that quietly said, “I’m still here” — I felt it. And it meant more than I could possibly say.

I’ve been fairing well, quietly moving through the days and letting life hold me in the ways it could. I truly hope you’ve been doing okay too — or at the very least, that you’ve had gentle moments to breathe in between whatever chaos life has thrown your way.

It’s been a long time since I last sat down and really, fully wrote. The kind of writing that comes from that raw, open space in my chest. For a while, I lost my voice. Not literally, but in that slow ache kind of way — where the thoughts are there, loud and begging, but the words just… won’t form.

And so I found myself sitting with that silence. Wallowing a bit, honestly — in the heavy quiet of a writer who can’t write. Of someone who once found safety and structure in her words, now floating somewhere in between “I’ll write tomorrow” and “what if it never comes back?”

But slowly, slowly — I’m finding my way again. And maybe that’s because of you. You who continued to show up, to check in, to remind me that my voice, even quiet or cracked, still matters.

So thank you — from the softest part of my heart. Thank you for listening even when I had nothing new to say. Thank you for reading the old things like they were new again. Thank you for reminding me that this space still exists, and that it’s ours.

I love you. I really do.

Until soon,

Ivy.