A new beginning

 I had originally planned on starting this new blog (and a substack for other reasons I will share soon enough) earlier this month but life happened so now I’m beginning it today. And while I had originally intentionally started these things on a significant day for me, this one is different. There is nothing associated with this day except the 2 week mark from my birthday.

So, why a new blog and why not continue on Journey of a Catholic Nerd Writer? Because I feel like that era of my life is over. That’s not to say I’m no longer Catholic. I am. But I feel like that part of my life is over. I’m no longer the young woman who started that blog; who talked about college and vocation discernments and random things. While I’m still a woman who loves the same things — jazz music, flowers, books, etc. — I’m in a different place in my life.

It took a nearly year-long spiritual desolation and some unexpected but beautiful changes in my life to get me where I am. I’m truly happy where I am in my life right now. I love the friends I have. I’m trying to figure out where my life will be going in terms of what I do from day to day but things are slowly falling into place. After 4 years of vocation discernment, I feel like I’ve figured out what it truly is (and it isn’t what I’d been discerning for the last 4 years) and I’m so at peace and happy with where I am with that.

While I’m still tripping while trying to get my spiritual life back on track after that incredibly difficult desolation that nearly saw me leave the Church — and I‘ll talk about this in the near future — I’m so grateful for it because it gave me the courage to be true to myself and to cut out some of the toxic negativity that was weighing me down and adding to the desolation. It was truly a gift in disguise.

I know a lot of people jumped ship on following me on social media and/or reading my former blog because of how much the hydrocortisone I once took for an adrenal insufficiency affected my brain chemistry and thus affected how I was acting but that’s okay. I’m not here to be anyone’s dancing monkey. I’m here to be myself and express that through the written word. And I think y’all can agree that I’ve pretty much return to myself — except a more extroverted version of myself. (Side note: thank you to a friend for helping me see that I’m actually an extrovert but one with trauma that made me retreat into myself and made it seem like I was an introvert. Yes, I’ll talk about this at some point as well.)

Why “roseate felicity”? Because it feels like me. Rose-colored optimism and happiness. And it’s been my IG handle for a year and a half so… it’s not new. 

Why not continue the old blog? Again, because I’m not the same person who started it. Additionally, I won’t be talking solely about Catholicism or my spiritual life, especially as I’m still trying to get back to that. It’s like I’m starting from zero in that area of my life. So this blog is to update friends and whoever wants to read these posts on what’s going on. Because I know I’m posting and sharing less online and sometimes friends will get upset when they find something out months after it happens. So, yeah, this is basically going to be a journal. Just on a public platform.

If I started this blog, why the Substack? Because I have some projects in mind that will require it. I won’t have it as a paid subscription thing. I might end up releasing part of novel four on it with a minimal fee to read it months before it gets published but I’m still trying to figure out if I’d be comfortable doing it.

So, this is a fresh start.. during spring. It feels like the right time to “come back” to my writing roots. 

And, yes, the blog will be “under construction” while I update it. Because I won’t be able to customize it as quickly as I did before my visual impairment. Legally blind girl problems. 😂

Anyway, I hope you are all well. And, yes, I promise to update y’all more often. I don’t need more scoldings about how my cryptic and vague tweets are confusing everyone.