A New Chapter, Not a New Story

I didn’t set out to make a statement. I mostly set out to tidy a website.

This website has been in need of some attention for a long time now. Gradually reshaping it over the last few months in-between jobs and life – the website story actually gained a little bit more perspective for me.

Somewhere between rebuilding old pages, sorting years of archived posts and trying to make sense of what still belonged here, I realised the website was becoming a fairly accurate picture of something bigger: not a reset in the sense of throwing everything away, but a reordering. A new chapter, not a new story. More like gathering up the pieces that still matter, letting go of what no longer fits, and making space for whatever comes next.

And so here is the first post of the new chapter for SH61.

I think the hardest part of having a blog that encapsulates a lot of history is that some of it is really not an accurate depiction of who I am anymore. In fact, some of it is just plain inaccurate full-stop. But there is a lot of truth in it all too, and a lot of memories and good stuff that I’m not wanting to bury or discredit so much as close the chapter and start the next one.

The last few years have been a journey of trauma, shifts and realignments that have undoubtedly lead to this place of rebuilding of who I am and what makes me, me. And part of that is absolutely the history and things that have gone before. But all of that seems different once you look through the dimmed light of perspective when life throws you a curveball. Or a few. Or just fires an entire batting cage’s worth directly at you. It results in a humbling. A humbling of who I am and what I do. That’s exactly what started – and hasn’t really stopped, actually. It seems every day I’m learning new ways I can be humbled and challenged – and in a super weird and uncomfortable way – I’m starting to learn to appreciate it.

So what is this chapter looking like?

Well, much as the artwork of this new website suggests – sketchy. Not in a ‘shifty back-alley deals’ kind of way, but in a ‘I couldn’t tell you what tomorrow looks like’ kind of way. And that’s not how I lived my life. I used to operate with such concluded certainty that I had it all mapped out. And like I say, that side of me is completely and utterly being reset. It’s been a journey of rebuilding my interests, changing family life dramatically, shifting the way I work and underlying it all – my faith becoming more real as I learn to rely on the one person who doesn’t change; Jesus. It’s like I used to live in a cartoon where I loved the bold black lines and vibrant colours that were so definitive (I still love that artwork style, by the way) – but that didn’t seem right for this website anymore. Just as it hasn’t been the theme of my life. Sketched out art and watercoloured textures that can easily be shifted and changed by the artist at the flick of a paintbrush. That’s where I’m at. That’s the picture I’m being moulded into.

I’m learning that living honestly, even when it means that answers are harder, trumps a performed polished version of who I am. And so in this new chapter for this website – and for my life – that’s where my compass is turning towards. With true north being, quite simply, the Creator who is still writing the story with every day I live.