The events of 2025 seemed to lock up my creativity, and my means of processing the world felt largely unavailable to me. Again. I loved every minute of BUTTER 5, and I wrote about it some, but maybe words weren’t the way forward. It took living through another year, nursing not just the hurts from before but a hope that had nearly been extinguished.
It took returning—to what I believed and where I had been and who I thought I was before. It took realizing I was right and wrong about all sorts of things. BUTTER this year was a tidal wave of energy. Kind of like that scene from The Little Mermaid, where Ariel perches on a rock while the wave splashes behind her. Except—my feet are on the rocks, and the wave surges me upward, rocks and all.
The momentum is fluid. The foundations are firm.
This is my return.
To what, though? What is there to return to? Not the job I can’t do anymore. Not a creative life I’ve yet to establish—or have I been working on that this whole time? Perhaps the return is to my craft and practice—speaking broadly, specifically, directly, spiritually, especially.
I have, in fact, returned to myself.
The me I didn’t know I was, and that I have always been. The me I never felt safe enough to show to or share with anyone else. The me I never gave credit for—for growing, for learning, for healing. The me I had no belief in. The me I am becoming.
Messy, abstract, as real as lightning.
That’s who I get to be.
Last year: You Can Be Yourself Here as a dream to hope for, a milestone to reach, a truth I didn’t know how to believe
This year: excited and honest, avoiding eye contact and grinning and listening
Last year: shrugging away from speaking about my work or thanking others for theirs
This year: spotting artists, speaking up, naming and being myself in the BUTTER space
Last year: anxious and absorbed in all the ways I told myself I wasn’t enough, I wouldn’t belong, I couldn’t possibly…
This year: expressive and present; enjoying and embodying the absolute fullness of my being
Is that last one just a BUTTER thing? No, I’ve felt that way before. There are times when I know with certainty what needs to be released. The reservations are gone, because it’s not about doing-hustling-grinding. It’s not about trying to succeed. It’s about being in, moving through, engaging with: myself, the world, the people around me.
It’s living.
Until I can’t anymore.
From one BUTTER to another, it’s been a year of long-coming losses and unexpected opportunities. I got my ass handed to me by my own psyche, and then I found my resolve. I might be saying the same thing as last years’ posts, but it doesn’t feel like it. Because it’s not a someday, it’s not a far-off dream.
This is now.
My life is happening.
And in that life, I am recognized from last year. I belong because I know I do. I’m enough because I don’t need to be anything other than how I show up in the moment. I am equal parts artist, author, advocate, archivist. Professional, playful, poet, participant. I show up seeking challenge and community. I lead with openness and observation.
In this life, I know mistakes are as natural as a head cold. I know suffering affords no virtue. I know change isn’t failure. I know failure doesn’t destroy a future. I know joy needn’t be earned. I know sorrow swells by the hour and rage is always ready to overtake me and there is a deeper mystery at work than might ever be revealed to me.
But are answers what I need?
On some computers, there’s a return key. On others, it’s labeled “enter”. BUTTER for me this year was both things. A turning-reaching-going. A coming back to-through-in-out-again.
Just like living.
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