Since my mom died in 2023, I took a risk as a writer.
I stopped writing, only focusing my efforts on the clients who paid me to write for them.
I hardly worked on “my book” and I stopped promoting my professional expertise on my blog and social media.
I didn’t have the energy for it.
After 12 years at my mom’s side during her slow decline from early-onset Alzheimer’s, I realized I didn’t know who I was outside of being her care partner, her advocate, her daughter, and in some ways her mother, too.
Who was I when I was no longer a caregiver to someone with Alzheimer’s?
Being Mom’s power of attorney gave me two identities for more than a decade. I was me, but I was her, too, walking around making health care and financial decisions on behalf of both of us. Doing my best, at least.
It took about a year after she died for me to realize that I had been living in survival mode, I didn’t know myself, my work, my worth.
I let go of my professional writing to make space for exploring and refining my inner life.
Trading my professional instinct to write and share my content freely online so I could move inward became a radical act of trust in myself as a writer and business owner.
The stakes were fairly high. If I didn’t promote myself as a content specialist, would I disappear? Or could I discover my real purpose?
Knowing deeply within me that if I took some time to listen, I could find the critical parts of myself that had been muted by survival mode.
But something else was growing, even though I didn’t think I had planted any seeds this entire time.
While I hadn’t published anything publicly, I hadn’t missed a single night of journaling in three years. Not a single night. Which means today, I have thousands of handwritten journal pages for my eyes only (for now).
So while I had gained a lot of wisdom and expanded my inner world rather silently, I now have this garden of words that contains a rough draft story of my life for the past 1,000+ days. Over the course of time, themes developed, shaping it into an energy undulating with the wisdom of Alzheimer’s survivorship, notes on my career as a professional writer, and a desire to find my readers.
All of my readers.
The story is a long one, but I won’t apologize for sharing it here and taking my time doing it. Garden, both my business and the proverbial jungle of my mind are super locked into the challenge of communicating better, getting back to the basics, regrowing the discipline of writing in more fertile ground so that when or if we lose our way, at least we have a place we can find our words.
Thank you for believing in me
To the clients who trusted me, the colleagues who didn’t expect many updates.
To friends who kept believing, thank you.
To K, for your devotion.
You opened your hearts so I had a fighting chance to open my own.
Lonna W.
Lonna is the founder of Garden Communications Co.
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