So I raise a glass to one year, full of successes, and a second glass to a second year ahead, of remembering to experience life in all of it’s messy, cake-fight glory with respect for all of my Anchors and constantly, ever searching for high seas and adventurous Freedom.
I can’t really fathom the fact that this blog just turned TWO. It still feels like yesterday that I was sitting on the patio of an apartment overlooking the Pacific, eating crab, drinking margaritas, jotting down notes in a Moleskin that read “the second you get back from California, you are going to start a BLOG.” I remember brainstorming the name. I was wearing a gold necklace with an anchor charm on it, thinking how wonderful it would be if I never had to ‘go back’ and could simply wander around, move forward, and experience life differently every moment. I had my anchors: money, family, friends that not only were supportive, but encouraging – people you will never leave behind. But I wanted freedom: the ability to let go without being considered villainous for it, constant change, to see the world, and to live a thousand different lives with a thousand different people a thousand times over.
And so, Anchors & Freedom was born. A place for me to work with myself in a medium that wasn’t necessarily the most conventional. A place to connect with people that maybe saw things my way (or at least a little differently). A place to watch myself grow. A place to encourage growth.
This blog, much like any creative child, has had it’s ups and down. It has gotten me in trouble, it has caused drama in unlikely places, it has helped me connect with people I otherwise would never have connected with, it has centered me, it has provoked me, and it has changed me. But most of all – these pages, and those of you who read them, have helped me find my voice. Not the voice that has always existed; loud and obnoxiously defiant, but the voice that makes me who I am, as a creative.
Writer. Rambler. Freebird. Dreamer.
Blogger. Scorpio. Artist. Shaker.
Wanderer. Malcontent. Difficult. Outrageous.
Creature. Fragile. Stubborn. Rough.
Disaffected. Whimsical. Determined. Distraught.
It is impossible to describe ourselves in one word. In four words. In eighteen. Yet we ask this of ourselves, as do others. This space, in this tiny little corner of the Internet, has made it so that I no longer have to.
Happy Birthday, Anchors & Freedom! I’ll be eating a piece of [gluten-free] cake for you today. Because I love birthdays. And I love cake. And I haven’t had breakfast yet.
& THANK YOU. Thank you, thank you, thank you, to all of you who keep coming back. To those of you I know, to those of you I wish to know, and to those of you I will never know – you are wonderful, you are supportive & you make me smile every day.
xo & yw & here's to the big 0-3!
