the long pause
Yeah, so… about that.
Last you heard from me, I was tying a neat little bow on Year One of this blog and making God a very ambitious list of promises about 2026. Cute. Adorable, even. Then I promptly disappeared for four months without so much as an out-of-office reply. Mrs. Commitment Issues strikes again and this time she brought a syllabus.
Two Can Play That Game (2001)
Yes, a syllabus. Because somewhere between turning 30 and watching my life rearrange itself without my permission, I decided, with the unbothered confidence of a woman who has clearly lost the plot—to go back to school. Full-time. While also working full-time. As one does, apparently, when one is freshly 30 and operating on the logic that if everything else is on fire, you might as well throw your free time in the ring too. I'd love to tell you there was a five-year plan. There was not. There was a Tuesday, a feeling, and an application portal. The girls who get it, get it.
And at this rate, a 10K is up next — because nothing says "I just turned 30" like signing up for something physically and emotionally beyond your current capacity and calling it growth. Stay tuned for the post where I cry at mile four and call it healing.
Unknown, (Unknown)
Here's the thing nobody warns you about when you're declaring that you’ll "show up with rhythm and audacity": life hears that and goes, oh word? Bet. It all started with finally ending that God-forsaken relationship I should've left months ago and not because anything new happened, but because I finally ran out of excuses to stay. Around the same time, two friendships I thought would be lifetime appointments turned out to be, in fact, seasonal. Then work got loud and school got even louder. Naturally, this all happened in under six months, which I think was either God's sense of humor or possibly just the natural consequence of declaring anything out loud (I really need to stop doing that).
I will not, however, be unpacking any of that on here. We’ve established that I overshare for sport, but even I know when to keep things between me, my Notes app, and my prayer mat. Just know it was a lot. And yes, I'm aware of the irony in writing this on a blog—but there's a difference between processing your own life in your own corner and assembling a roster of mutuals to weigh in on someone else's. It’s always interesting how the people quickest to call you performative are often the ones who need an audience to process anything. And respectfully, that's not my ministry.
I will always be the first to name my own mistakes—which is probably why I don't have the energy for people who can't name theirs. I know exactly who I am and no amount of secondhand commentary from people working through their own stuff is going to convince me otherwise. I handled mine sure, with approximately 70% grace and 30% dramatic monologues delivered to my prayer mat, but handled nonetheless.
And somehow, I’m fine.
Look at God!
What I will say though, is that at some point I noticed every draft I sat down to write was reading like a press release for my own breakdown, and babe… no. That's not the brand. That's not even the truth, really. The truth is messier, a lot funnier, and honestly less interested in being witnessed in real time. So I closed the laptop, went to class and cried in my car a respectable amount. I let the people who needed to know, know, and let everyone else wonder, because mystery is a girl's best friend, and I was running low on accessories to the crime that had become my life.
Turns out, silence is its own kind of becoming. Who knew?
Girlfriends (1999)
I came back to this blog a few times in my head before I came back to it for real. I'd open the tab, stare at the cursor, close it, and go scroll TikTok like a coward. I wasn't really sure who I was writing as anymore. The girl who started The Local Hot Girl was processing in real time, in public, with feeling. The girl typing this has done a lot of that processing privately and shockingly, the world kept turning. I’m learning that not everything has to be a dispatch. Some things just need to be lived, badly, with snacks and a lot of rest.
This blog has kind of grown up with me over the past year and some change, and I’m realizing I don't want this to be a space I only show up to when I'm spiraling. Don’t get me wrong, I love a feelings post and they absolutely will return. I just want more lanes. I want to tell you about the album I've had on repeat for a suspicious number of weeks. The restaurant I keep going back to despite my own financial advice. The vintage Prada bag I found on a niche resell website that I had to text three people about. The small, specific, deeply unserious things that make up a life when it isn't actively under fire and combusting.
Aaliyah (1997)
So.
This is a soft reopening, with a little facelift (I hope you noticed!!!). But, I'm still me. A little less unraveled, a lot more grounded, and writing again because I actually want to and certainly not because I owe anyone an update. And ugh, can I just say? It feels so good to have my personality back. The scorpio in me will always ebb and flow, but right now I am in a pure flow state of chaos and curation, and I can’t wait to share more. Again, the diary entries will be back too. I’m not crazy, I love them just as much as y’all do! They're just making room for everything else I've been saving up to tell you.
We are so back.
