It is late at night and my roommate Abby is asleep in the bed across from mine. It is late at night and I am trying to write a good blog.

I am not letting myself go to sleep because I have not written a blog in a very long time. I have seventeen drafts. They are taunting me. Their names are:

• boogie
• Aaaand we’re back
• A Secret
• The Not Baddest Of Times
• anxiety
• Kelsey’s Story
• Untitled
• Backwards
• This has a happy ending
• Girl
• Bock Rottom
• Far From Home
• The End of Everthing pt 1
• control
• Inside Out
• Unclear
• Don’t be like me

They house a combined total of 9,034 words, and none of them are right. I can’t make them say what I want them to say.

I want to tell you guys that I had a bad Christmas. It’s difficult to write a happy girl’s guide when you aren’t feeling all that happy. I took a break from posting since arriving home from New Zealand. I’ll explain the parts that need explaining, but that will have to come later.

I want to find a way to thank you all for reading. I haven’t been able to articulate how important it has been for me to know that there are people who will read what I have to say. I think that’s the best gift you can give to anyone. I want you to know that if you write to me, whether it be a comment on this site or my instagram, or an email, or a direct message, or a good old fashioned letter, I will read it. I may not always know how to respond, I may not know exactly how to help, but I promise you that your words are important to me and I will read everything and anything you send me.

I want to write about living with Crohn’s Disease, but I’ve come to realize that I want to write about more than that, too. I want to talk about my life, the way I’m feeling, the things that have been happening to me. This blog has been growing in a direction I wasn’t expecting, and I don’t want to force it to stay within certain boundaries. I want to reach as many of you as possible, illness or no illness. I want to create a community of support for anyone who needs it. I’m not sure how to do all of that. I guess we’ll figure it out together.

I’m warming up my fingers and I’m trying to let the words come to me. I’m trying to be honest about this. I’ve been away for a while so I want to get this right.

There is a comment that was posted on one of my blogs that I think of every day. I was in a library in Dunedin, New Zealand when I first read it. I was having a rough time. I don’t remember exactly who posted it (I’m sorry!) or exactly what is said, but I remember the final sentence: we are all rooting for you. I immediately burst into tears– it seems so absurd, but in that moment I finally recognized the feeling that writing this blog gives me.

I can feel your support every day. You can tell when someone is rooting for you, and it changes the way you look at your challenges. It changes the way you look at yourself.

It was a bad Christmas. But every morning I woke up to the knowledge that people I had shared my heart with, people I had never even met, were rooting for me. I needed that, I don’t know how to thank you.

I know this is sappy and cheesy and I’m not sorry about it. I am sappy and I am cheesy and we are in this together, caring about strangers and trying our best to be honest and kind.

I am rooting for you. I don’t know who you are exactly, but I know that you are kind because you are taking the time to read this. I know that you are trying to become a person you are proud of. I know that there are so many things outside of your control that are pushing in on you every day.

And even though I don’t know you exactly, I can feel the support from those of you who are sending it my way. I want to send it back. I want you to know that someone you have never met and might not ever meet is still rooting for you.

I hope you can feel that like I do. I hope it helps you in the same way.

And if we do get lucky and happen to meet, I hope you come up to me and tell me that you have been reading. I want the chance to hug you, to look at your face and thank you so much for changing the way I relate to the world.

I don’t know if all of those drafts will ever be finished. I don’t know if they’ll be posted. But I do know that I will keep writing.

But for now, that’s all I wanted to say. I’ll talk to you soon.