Well.

I wasn’t planning to take a three-week vacation (of sorts) from the internet, but that’s what happened.

[Or was it four weeks? It might have been four.]

And now that I’m back–

Something is different.

I can’t quite explain it.

Did I mention that I also just spent ten days in Hawaii?

Yeah, for something called the Wanderlust Festival.

Which involved a lot of yoga, music, surfing, and eating.

It took place at this pretty spectacular resort called Turtle Bay on the North Shore of O’ahu.

[For half the cost of one night in the hotel, I camped for five nights (in a tent) on the beach (along with a lot of other people).  Afterwards, I spent three nights in a quiet hostel in bustling Waikiki, in order to practice my surfing in friendlier waters. Not a huge fan of Waikiki, I have to say. But perfect weather and surf = no complaints.]

Anyway, yeah.

Something is different.

And I’m still a little too jet-lagged to work through it right now.

But I will say this:

I’ve had kind of a rough winter.

(And I don’t just mean the weather.)

And lately there’s been this weird, slow lifting of a fog.

Which maybe sounds like a good thing– and maybe actually is a good thing.

But the unexpected cost of increased clarity (at least in this case) is a terrible, relentless, psychic pain.

(That is to say, a pain in/of the psyche. Nothing to do with predicting the future, which still seems as mysterious and impenetrable as ever.)

And now I’m finding myself faced with a choice.

I could either keep all of this to myself, as I have been over the past few weeks.

Or I could write about it.

(So, you’d think I’d naturally want to write about it, right?)

Here’s the thing.

It would not be inaccurate to say that I spent this past winter hiding in a cave.

(A choice I don’t exactly regret, but something I will never purposely do again.)

And I wrote whatever I felt like writing about, because– quite frankly– I was operating in some realm outside of real-time/real life where nothing really mattered because it was all theoretical. (Please don’t ask me to explain.  I’m super-tired right now.)

The point is:

After Hawaii and my internet hiatus, I feel like I’m going through some sort of reboot.

Spring is on the horizon (despite the persistent snow in my backyard), and the gears are, once again, in motion.

Yes, I’m back in Pennsylvania at the moment– but I’m hitting the road again in a few weeks. (Details to follow, but we’re talking Boston, Seattle, possibly S.F. or L.A., and Panama. And that’s just April/May.)

Whereas a few weeks ago I was looking out at a polar vortex ice kingdom outside my bedroom window, the battered remnants of fall and winter now splay out across a transforming landscape, waiting patiently for Spring to spring.

And I, too, am ready.

Man, I’ve learned a lot about myself over the past few months.

The good, the bad, the ugly– it’s all out there in plain sight (inside my head).

Now would be such a great time to just drop the whole project.

To get up, dust myself off, and– despite whatever enormous challenge this might pose– (re-?)enter the realm of The Normal.

And yet…

This might also be the time for transparency.

The time to truly practice what I’ve been preaching.

The time when I muster the will to find strength in pain, strength in truth, strength in vulnerability–

The time when I muster the courage to share the result of that with you.

I mean–

Words.

They’re the only real (and renewable) resource I’ve got.

Might as well use ‘em.

* * *

That being said, I’m still on the fence.

I’m about to find myself in a position (if I’m not already) where people I don’t know will be (or already are) Googling me for “more information”– and this blog is the first thing they’re going to find.

So, yeah.

Hey, there, People! 

Look.

It’s too late to pretend to be anything or anyone other than who I am.

And I’m trying my best to be the best version of that person that I can be.

OK, that’s all I’ve got.

So I guess I’m just gonna leave you for now with something yoga teacher-extraordinaire Eoin Finn said at Wanderlust:

I’ve got nothing to prove, and everything to share.

(If you discover a few days from now that this post was not, in fact, the end of my blog, you’ll know that I took those words to heart.)