I owe a quiet apology to the many people who reached out over the past year and never heard back from me.
I’ve been trying to write this post since December, but every time my body would shut down before I could find the words. So if you wrote to me and I disappeared, please know it was never indifference.
2025 was one of the hardest years of my life.
When I was younger there was an incident where I was nearly drowned. I remember the feeling of trying to reach the surface but never quite getting my head above the water long enough to breathe. That’s the closest metaphor I have for how the last couple of years have felt, constantly pushing upward, always just short of air.
The burnout that hit at the end of 2024 took most of the first half of 2025 to recover from. And just when I thought I had my footing again, I slipped into one of the deepest depressions I’ve ever experienced.
A lot of the year disappeared into simply trying to regain the energy to exist in the world again. Even now, the simplest things can take more effort than they used to, and short conversations can leave me drained.
But I’m still here.
Moving slowly, rebuilding, and trying to be patient with recovery.
If you reached out and I never answered, please know I appreciated it more than you probably realize. And if I’ve been quiet, it wasn’t because the connections in my life stopped mattering.
Sometimes it just takes a long time to come up for air.