this morning I woke up early and watched the light come up over Brooklyn. the skyline going soft and gold for a few quiet minutes before the trains start screaming and everybody remembers where they have to be.

it felt like the first day of something. or maybe just another day. sometimes those feel the same.

last fall, things started slipping in a way I could feel coming. there wasn’t one big dramatic moment, no crash. more like a slow eclipse. light thinning out little by little until one day everything was darker and I couldn’t say exactly when it changed.

the people around me saw it before I did. therapists. counselors. psychiatrists. people who love me and kept showing up, holding out their hands. but they could no longer single-handedly keep me together. alive.

I just couldn’t meet them yet. like I was standing a few steps behind myself,
watching, but not quite there.

by November, it was clear I needed more help than I could get at home. so I went away for a while, to an addiction recovery and mental health treatment center, far from the city.

no phone. totally offline. no way to check in or write back. just my guitar and a notebook, and stretched out days learning how to sit with myself without running.

if you wrote to me during that time, thank you. I literally couldn’t answer, but it meant more than you know.

I’m back now. sort of. but it doesn’t feel like picking up where I left off.

it feels more like starting from the beginning again. like moving into an empty room
and deciding, really slowly, what I put in it and what gets to stay.

the road ahead feels long. some days I’m myself. some days I’m brand new and shaky.

but this morning the sun hit the tops of the buildings and for a second everything looked possible.

so I’m here. still trying. back in my own room, playing songs again.

thank you for being here with me. I can’t say I will be checking in here a lot. for now, IDK. I have to make a step each day. take things one day at a time.

Abuela reminded me yesterday about the lilies of the field, how they don’t toil or worry, yet they are cared for. I’m trying to hold onto that. be a lily. just take things one day at a time.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” — John 1:5.