Old & New Beginnings
There is a beauty in taking something old and making it new again, in the process of sprucing up and revitalizing and rebranding. This is not the first SQRL Club, nor is it the 2nd, actually. This is both the start of something new, and the re-starting of something that once was.
And if you’re new here, allow me to explain.
Way back in the fall of 2021, I decided to launch my very own personal blog. I had just taken the leap from working a full-time 9-5 in South Carolina to working as a freelance writer and moving back in with my parents in New Hampshire, and I wanted, nay, needed, an outlet for the thoughts going on in my brain. I had a lot to say, and somehow confiding in my journal wasn’t enough of an outlet. I needed to know that someone heard me, that someone was listening to what I had to say even if those someones were only my close personal friends and family.
And while this blog only lasted for a few months, it was hugely impactful for me as a growing writer, and in understanding just what it is I wanted to be doing with my life. So why did I stop? Well, the answer is both complicated and it isn’t. I stopped because I had to, because writing about what I was writing, in the way that I was writing it, left me feeling too raw and exposed. It was too angry, too riddled with my own depression and anxiety and rage at the world for the things I had endured. I wasn’t in the right headspace to be writing a blog, and I worried entirely too much about what other people might want from me and from the SQRL Club, instead of what I wanted from me and what I wanted from the creation of the SQRL Club.
Over the last year, I have grown in ways I did not think possible. I have healed from things I don’t care to speak about and learned lessons I didn’t know I even needed to learn. I have felt joy and sorrow and grief and rage, and I’ve been able to know myself on a much deeper level because of it.
I put my trust in the universe and in myself, and it has led me back here, back to a blank page and an idea and a place where these things can all come together.
The writing might look different, and it may be a little less intrusive of my thoughts and choices and life, but rest assured that the new and improved SQRL Club will still utilize the same raw honesty and vulnerability as was custom. I am committed to what has always been my vision for this place - a creative outlet for my writing, and a place for fun and independence and childlike joy and nostalgia. Something that is entirely of my own creation, much like the original Squirrel Club I founded as an 8 year old in my own backyard.
Of course, the very first Squirrel Club had nothing to do with writing, though even at that age I was drafting stories and had notebooks full of future book ideas. The Squirrel Club was born of my always-present desire for leadership and my love for actual squirrels, which have been my favorite animal for as long as I can remember. There were rankings based on different types of squirrels, rules as to who could do what, and entire games of pretend orchestrated around the Squirrel Club premise. And while the very first Squirrel Club lasted all of a month or two, it was my first taste of confidence and leadership and power.
It was something that was all mine, just like the blog I created in 2021, and this new resurgence of said blog, here and now in 2023.
I have spent the last year of my life dedicated to nothing but my own personal happiness. I chose myself again and again and again, until it was second nature, until it didn’t wrack me with guilt to do so. Getting to know the truth of exactly who I am, my wants and needs and dreams and fears, while extremely difficult, is exactly what led me back here, what led me to being the happiest I’ve ever been and on a deeply rewarding journey towards the rest of my life. Writing about it, especially like this, feels much like coming home to myself - a final merging of the person I always knew myself to be on the inside and the person the world saw me as on the outside. My hope is to bring this new sense of self into the SQRL Club, to utilize my confidence and self-assuredness to continue growing both myself and my writing.
It remains to be seen where the rest of my career and my life will take me, but I’m so grateful for your support along the way. So thank you, and of course, welcome (back) to the SQRL Club!
