It’s 2025, and I’m Alone in Mexico, Writing on TheLITMOLife.com
I can’t believe I’m writing on TheLITMOLife.com right now. Don’t get me wrong — this is the most excited I’ve been to sit down at my computer in a LONG while, and I’m thrilled. But to be honest, the blog isn’t even fully rebuilt yet. After a website hack and a major snafu with my host company, it had to be rebuilt from scratch. It doesn’t contain the history of past posts, which is really sad. But I can’t worry about that now. And I’m NOT worried about the blog being perfect yet because I wanted to sit down, metaphorical pen to paper (or fingers to keys), and dive into the next chapter of my life. Whatever that is.
And honestly? I regret ever stopping writing.
Art: The Missing Piece
As you can tell from the EXTREMELY pretentious title of this blog post, I’ve recently come to realize that we are nothing without art. Specifically, I am nothing without creative expression.
The past 8 years have been very happy. Full of my husband, animals, family, friends, love, and adventure. And yet, it lacked one big glaring thing: personal expression.
I found it in other ways after I abandoned writing — through yoga, handbalancing, and contortion. I was always doing something to express myself, but I wasn’t doing my first and only true artistic love: writing.
Rediscovering My First Love
A few weeks ago, I started reading The Artist’s Way after seeing TikTok after TikTok recommend the book. And it made me remember how much I love words. How much I love the connection between words and the soul. How I’d spent the past 8 years finding ways to express myself through physical art forms and human connections, but without letting the words flow out of my fingertips, I was feeling incomplete.
I tried (and hated) to align myself to the artistic mediums of the day through social media, but no matter how much I pushed, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t find love in video editing, scrolling, or filming. Writing — however badly, however quickly, however inconsistently — has always been the way I make myself heard.
I know this all sounds lofty and pretentious. Unfortunately, it’s also exactly how I feel.
Pain, Loss, and the Need for Creative Expression
The deeper truth is that I’m in pain. There’s never a better or more apt season of life to rediscover art than when you feel that the emotions inside of you cannot remain inside — because they’re too big, too happy, or, in some cases, too deep, dark, and painful to stay trapped in the body. And that’s where I am now.
The past 8 years have been largely happy, yes. But the last two years, since my beloved soulmate and best friend, my dog Holly, left this planet, have been the hardest of my life. The loss of Holly, stacked on top of many disappointments in friendships, work, and lifestyle, and now, one of the greatest disappointments of all — watching my country become a place I don’t even recognize.
I needed an out. But instead of creating a new one, I found my way back to the thing I birthed and loved from the start: this blog.
A New Beginning
I don’t know what I’m going to do with this blog yet. But honestly? I don’t care. All I need right now is a creative outlet again.
So much of my life has shifted, changed, and evolved — as any well-lived life should. I have so many feelings about all of it. And those feelings haven’t had a place to go. Now, I hope they’ll have a home again.
Welcome Back to The LITMO Life
This is as much a message to myself as it is to any serendipitous reader: Welcome back to The LITMO Life.