To my readers,

I am learning a lot as of lately. For one, I am learning that I am not a octupus. And that’s a real shame. I want eight arms. More than that, I want to do everything. An extra six arms would do me a lot of good. I’d be able to write and dream and think and plan and create and cook and shop and do an excessive amount of “more things” with the extra capacity that would exist from six more arms. Sadly, I wake up every single morning being just one girl. One girl with two arms who wants to take on the world.

So this isn’t really a post, per say. And it’s not an apology letter, I promise. It’s just a quick note to some of my favorite folks scattered across the world to say: Hey. I miss you. And I am coming back to this space really soon. I have all these ideas tumbling around in my head for new content. I can’t wait to write about faith, and falling, and failing, and freeing yourself, and fumbling, and all these “f” type verbs that I didn’t realize all started with the letter “f” until now.

I went back and forth with my mother on the phone this morning about whether I’d write this post or not.I was trying to juggle my iced espresso, cellphone, bag, laptop case, and planner— all while thinking about you.

I’ve felt guilty for leaving this space unoccupied for nearly two weeks. You know that kind of guilt? You wake up with it. You go to bed with it. You listen to Taylor Swift’s new song and it falls off of you for ten minutes. And then it comes back, this evil little hissing: you should be writing. You should be writing.

I’ve been all over the country in the last two weeks and I kept saying to myself in Seattle and Tacoma and Portland and LA, “I am going to sit down and write. I am going to sit down and publish something.”

And I didn’t.

I guess sometimes you publish things. And sometimes you just live. You break all the little rules you’ve made for yourself and you just live.

…

So if this were a summer camp letter then I’d have a lot to say. For instance, I visited this massive gum wall in Seattle and got to leave a pretty sweet note (see above). I mean, it was a wall. Full of gum. And I thought it was awesome. I put my feet in the Pacific Ocean for the very first time and had a Britney Spears Crossroads moment (please, someone get my reference). I sat down in a coffee shop in Seattle with two readers that, I would say, are as diehard as they come. And one of them waited until I was sitting, until I’d taken the first sip of my latte, to start talking.

“Can I ask you something I’ve wanted to ask you for a long time?”

“Anything,” I answered. I’m an open book like that.

“What’s your dad like? You never write about your dad.”

So I got to sit there, with a pretty dang good latte pursed in my hands, and tell her about the sweetest man I know. I don’t write about him much here. He’s a soft-spoken sort of guy. You’d say my mother is the hurricane and he’s just always been that rock. I got to tell her that I hope to marry a man one day who is half of my father. Half of my father would be more than enough for me. By the way, his name is Bill. And you’d be lucky to know him if you knew him.

I got to sit at a countertop in the middle of Eugene, Oregon and finally catch up with a really good friend— you know the kind of catching up where all the pauses in the conversations get filled with “I’ve really missed you. I am so happy to be here.” I got to attend the Yellow Conference and meet so many of your beautiful faces. And I got to have one of those surreal “pinch me” moments when I realized that I’m not just a writer. Somehow, somehow, a community has formed here. In this space. And we’ve done life together. You and me, we’re connected in ways I could not even imagine. I get to cheer for you and that’s the coolest honor.

…

“I think I am just going to write a short post,” I told my mom this morning. “I just want to say that I miss them. Because I do.”

“Then say that,” my mom said back. “But don’t be sorry.” Now that my mother knows I’ve lived a past life as an apology note, she won’t let me go back there any longer.

So that’s just it, the actual reason I wrote this letter: I miss you. And I think about you a lot. And I just want to be the type of person who, when she misses someone, goes out of her way to tell that person they are missed.

So yea, I miss you. I feel really lucky. And I am coming back soon. 

hb.

P.S.

If you want to write back in the comments below and tell me about your summer, I will be reading. I’d love to hear from you.