Today is my 9th anniversary. My clean anniversary. I  am coming so close to having been a decade ‘healthy’ (the euphemism we use for ‘addict in recovery‘). I always get annoyingly retrospective this time of year, and so I thought it might be a good time to catch up and reflect on not just the last nine years, but my creative life in particular over the last few months.

It’s kind of extraordinary when your life does a 180° and all the sorts of things that made up your life are suddenly missing or wholly changed.

Nine years ago, I left my home in Washington, DC for the last time. My mother had driven up from her idyllic little home in South Carolina and helped me do the last of my packing. It was a beautiful day for a long drive and I feel like I’ll never forget that for some reason. I was hazy and hungover and starting a hard transition in life and that drive was the point of no return.

In that time I’ve moved three times – from SC to VA to Boston and then back to that very same little town in South Carolina. My life has changed dramatically. I’m healthier and happier than I ever thought was possible that pretty June day.

Today is the day of the year I look back and say yet again how grateful I am for the hard decisions I’ve made in the last nine years; career changes, new relationships, the ends of some old ones. Today is the day I remind myself how lucky I am to have my health, my family, and my international cadre of incredibly supportive friends. I briefly mourn the losses that have seemed to pile up as I head into my late 30’s.

Is there a particular date that hits you harder than others? That may not seem an obvious choice but affects you anyway? I seem to equally dread and celebrate June 17th every year, and nine years into it I’m getting the feeling it’ll always be this way.