New venue, same me

Filling in the Blanks has a new home

When I first started writing Filling in the Blanks back in the Dark Ages (around 2010), I was reeling from a triple-barrel life whammy: mom died, dad died, career died, all at once. Oh, and my then six-year-old son was in a huge crisis (my crisis plus his neuro-divergence and a horrible teacher), and I ended a relationship that I had hoped was going to be the one I was in for the rest of my life. This all happened at the same time that my book “Falling Apart in One Piece: One Optimist’s Journey Through the Hell of Divorce” — a book about surviving the *prior* series of triple-whammy challenges that landed in my life — was published. Twas a bit of a mind fuck, I won’t lie.

At the time I launched Filling in the Blanks, I identified myself thusly, printed on my business cards and everything: Writer Editor Thinker Instigator Optimist

Today I’m not completely sure which of those things I still am.

But I do know that I know grief, and loss, and resilience. And that I believe our hearts can heal from anything — absolutely anything — with the right combination of wisdom, silence, reprieve and companionship.

And that’s what Filling in the Blanks is for: meditations on loss and grief and not getting what we wanted in life, and all the different ways we find ourselves full of ache — that empty space inside, those blanks — and how it is we keep soldiering on.

I promise not to publish simple aphorisms. And I definitely am never going to tell you that some terrible thing that happened in your life was a gift.

And I will probably sprinkle my writing with cuss words. You’ve been warned.

Thank you for being here. Especially if you need company. It would be my honor to be your company, truly.

And feel free to share this with friends.

With love,

Stacy