Y’all should know this before you read another stitch of wordage from me: I never wanted to be a blogger.

That’s right. 275 posts deep. Thousands of words floating up in this Titanic-like site full of content And I’m finally being honest: I never wanted to be a blogger.

But my own crepe shop? I’ve wanted that. So bad.

My own little crepe shop.

I’d say coffee shop but Starbucks butchered that vision fo’ life. And coffee within a crepe shop is always implied whereas a good crepe shop on its own two feet is a rarity. You must scour the concaves of the city for a stealthy, I-live-up-to-my-rep , hauling-major-street-cred crepe shop. And so, really, this corner of the internet is the closest that I’ve come to a crepe shop since a) finances + bookkeeping has never been in my bones b) I don’t actually know how make a crepe [yet] and c) writing has been such the jealous lover that he doesn’t share me with flour & aprons & customers with oozy stories.

So that leaves me here… nearly three years into a blogging career I never really wanted, fumbling over the words as if this were a first date and you showed up at the door looking all sorts of pretty. Trying to tell you that I’ve changed. That I’ve grown up in this space. I’ve sloshed around in puddles and pieced myself back together in this space. I’ve grappled with broken hearts & love letters & falling in love in coffee shops & homeless men & faith & loving myself & getting you to love yourself all in this place.

So consider this a re-meeting.

A way for me to pull up a bar stool beside you in this little crepe shop of ours to tell you that I’m not the girl I was when I entered the blogging world; 21; a college student; fueled by cupcakes, pearls & my craving to change the world.

This is me. A woman. A writer. A Someone that I love being for the very first time:

Hi.

My name is Hannah Brencher. I am 24 years old but I harbor a soul that is old & thick like the hands of Navajo grandmothers that swoop upward by the fire at night.

i am a writer. Not my choice. By the fact that I’ve had the hearts of others stapled to my sleeves since childhood and searching the ground for syllables seems like the only way to finally put them down. By the fact that I have abandoned all conventional sentence structures and ways of proper grammar that I have no choice but to say, “No, I’m not illiterate. Just a writer.”

I think big. Never small. & I stopped apologizing for it once I realized that the ones who say they’ll change the world are the ones who actually step out to do it. & if you come to me with an idea, I’m going to ask you plain: have you figured out a way that it will change the world yet? because the second your idea grows wings is on the very day you make it not about you. 

My life is sweet & sticky & beautiful. Only because I declared it that way. I got tired of the stress & anxiety & the self-consumed life. I worked for a different life. Every day. The work humbled me. Brought me to my knees. I’m never going back.

I am in the business of broken hearts by day. A speaker by night. An advocate on the days that end with big, boisterous Y’s. A writer always because I cannot put it down. A child of God in the every, every day.

Because I’m unreliable in my own skin. & He proves to be a carrier & a problem solver & a savior. He holds a big ol’ basin up to my chin and catches my tears. Every. Single. One. Ask me and I’ll share my story with you. Ask me and I will drop everything, brew a cup of coffee, meet you on Skype and share with you.

And this white space of mine, this corner of the internet, was always made to have walls.

Christmas lights spanning the interior. Coffee always dripping in the kettle. Crepes hot & fresh on fresh pottery. A spot for conversation. A nook for the days when the rain just ain’t stopping. A place to dwell in words that have only learned to pray their lettered limbs be like lanterns you.

I’m done with calling this mess of syllables “a blog.”

My little crepe shop is open for business.