Funny thing–I’ve been so nervous to check the comments and emails related to Invincible Summer–and I log in today to find a plethora of supporting, loving little lovelies. Yes, I just called you my lovelies, because you are!

So many blogging courses give you do’s and don’ts, always-es (yes, I pluralized always) and nevers. As in, don’t change your tone–don’t go from chipper and encouraging to somber and honest. Or, don’t make it all about you, because it’s about the reader.

I have been writing this blog for well over a year now, and mostly I’ve done it for the people (and that means YOU).

But do you want to know the truth? (Of course you do!)

All bloggers write for themselves, too. You don’t put yourself out there in front of the whole world if you don’t want the world to see you. You can write with altruistic motives; you can write in hopes of helping people, but you wouldn’t write if you didn’t love it and wish to be immersed in it and engaged in it and on fire about it.

This is the issue with me, lately: I’m not on fire about this blog, but that’s just for now. I don’t want it to go away, but it’s dishonest to try to pretend you’re all hot and burning for something that isn’t really pulling on your heart, tugging at it, playing its symphony over and over in your head.

I write about honesty and I write about making it honest, keeping it real, even if it’s brutal.

Well, none of this is brutal. In my last post I quoted Emilie Autumn’s lyric, “All the world is a judge but that doesn’t compare to what I do to myself when you’re not there.” What I meant, you see, is that anybody who writes a blog or starts a Youtube channel or steps onto a stage or publishes a book needs to understand that yes, you are going to be judged, and no, not everybody will like what you do, what you say, or how you do it and say it. So you just do it.

And the thing is, in private, I’m judging myself a hundred times more harshly than any of you possibly could.

Maybe we all do this, or maybe it’s something I just need to work on. Either way, I know this isn’t totally unique to me. It’s part of the human condition.

There’s so much focus in this niche, in this community–in the blogs I follow and in the blogs that many of you write–on dreaming big and playing big and living life as an artist.

All true and valuable topics, yes.

But there’s no reason to feel bad about saying that this year, you’re on another path.

This year, I’m driving my pretty little self crazy with work as I finish my degree and struggle to find the funds to keep an apartment, a full belly, a life. I’ve had to prioritize. Sometimes we dream too big, maybe.

(My “word for the year,” for 2013, is “softness.” I need to soften into what is important, and to treat myself softly.)

And sometimes, the dream is so big that you have to take a big deep breath and dive into it, which is what I’m doing now as I work at gaining various certifications that will help me become a better teacher, a person who can give the gift of language to people who might otherwise never have the chance to express themselves in words, in lyrics, in poetry–or to immerse themselves in literature.

In summary: yes, I am here. Yes, I am tired, but I’m also happy. Yes, I will keep writing. No, I can’t make any grand promises. But I’m here, still, writing with love. Always.

Somebody told me once that I write a lot of posts intended to inspire and uplift, with the purpose of helping my readers to understand and forgive their shortcomings, because we are all (aren’t we?) human. That same person also remarked that this was an awfully clever way of justifying my own actions and shortcomings, which I guess is also true: I write about a time that I really screwed up, or a day when I felt guilty for everything I said or did, and then I write something that makes it all okay. Something I’d maybe tell my own best friend if she had made the same mistake.

So let me answer the question you are probably thinking; let me get to the part where I tell you why there was no grand launch on Monday.

Oops, I did it. Again. I bit off more than I could chew.

Running a blog with seven authors? For some reason, I thought this would free up my writing and artistic time for other endeavors, while also allowing me to keep Invincible Summer running.

Because I’m proud of this blog, this place, this webspace I’ve created, and I don’t want it to disappear.

It’s hard; it’s super, super hard to write to seven eager and talented and beautiful women who are all ready with their bios and their first posts to say, “Guess what, you guys? I have the worst time-management skills ever, and I have 3 possible job opportunities, and … well, I can’t do this project right now.”

We’ve all done it before: over-committed, misjudged our capacities. And if you’re like me, you probably felt guilty about it for weeks afterward.

I’m trying to let the guilt go, though, and simultaneously not worry that I look like one of those people who never follows through, never finishes anything.

And I’m not going to pretty up this post with an apply-this-to-your-own-life bit, about how to handle it, and how it’s okay to step back from commitments. I hope you know that it’s okay. I’m still learning.

I suppose I just wanted to write a note telling you that I’m still here, but I’m not sure where I’m going. And this blog is still here, but I don’t know where it’s going. And as much as everyone keeps telling me not to apologize, I still feel the need to apologize for not making this space what I had intended … not yet, anyway.

If you’ve ever published anything or written a song or performed on a stage, then you know what it means to feel judged all the time. Because someone out there will always judge you.

Driving home from an exhausting day on campus today, I was listening to one of my favorite Emilie Autumn songs and came upon the lyric: “All the world is a judge but that doesn’t compare to what I do to myself when you’re not there …”

Think about that a while, loves. We all judge ourselves more harshly than anyone else ever could.

And I will try to take those words to heart, until I find my way.

Well, loves, the time has come for change. And what an exciting change it is! The site is almost ready for relaunch, and we have an amazing team of seven writers coming on board to co-write Invincible Summer, opening new avenues and exploring spaces that can hold our differences and similarities as women and writers.

I want this blog to become such a space.

The launch was planned for tomorrow, my 33rd birthday. It seemed very numerically auspicious to my kooky, woo-woo brain. But life, as it will, happened, and the date crept up, and now here we are. Should I stay up all night frantically putting the finishing touches on the redesigned site and writing newsletters … or should I do something pure and delicious, raising a glass in celebration of the fact that yes, I was born?

Historically, I’ve been a negative Nellie about my birthday. For one, there has been a mysterious series of unfortunate events that have occurred on my birthday–sometimes for several years in a row. Let’s not get into history, sob stories. But for one example, on my 30th birthday, my mom’s car caught on fire. You know, those sorts of things.

And as adults we’re told that it’s childish to make a big deal of our birthdays, to ask for the day off or to expect a party, a big to-do. “It’s just another day,” we say, and act like it’s true.

But isn’t a birthday the most amazing of all things to celebrate?

How lucky. What odds. I mean, really, the chances of being born human are astronomical. What a gift, being born human, pulsing and warm and full of life and love and endless potential–how lucky we are.

So when someone told me that I should delay the launch a day or two and just start focusing on celebrating me, now, I was taken aback at first.

But only for a moment.

Then I took a deep breath and stood up from my desk. I decided to start celebrating, right then and there–right here and now, in this moment.

I put on some music and started to move. I turned all of my “to-do” lists upside-down. I decided to stay at my house, loving my piano close and dear, and to let myself slow down and breathe.

I probably was not the only girl born in Hutzel Hospital, Detroit, Michigan, on March 8th, 1980. I’m told the maternity ward was so crowded that my mother gave birth to me in the hallway. And there was a blizzard outside, enough wind and snow that my parents barely made it to the hospital on time.

I was born on the day I was due. I didn’t want to wait another second to make my grand debut. So I gave them enough time to get to the hospital, and at 1:07 a.m. I came roaring into the world.

Isn’t it wonderful that we all have such a story?

Shouldn’t we regard ourselves, and our stories, as miracles, if only for the fact that we have the privilege of being alive on this planet for a few moments in time?

I think we should.

I love this …

I have one blood sister.

I know what sisterhood is, what it means, and the incredible power of that relationship. My sister and I, we go back farther than we remember. We laugh at the same things and we cry at the same things. We know the same stories back and front, by heart—her life story, and mine.

My sister lives almost 3,000 miles away from me, and I miss her every day. Before I joined the Wild Sisterhood, my loneliness for her would get indescribably painful.

Of course, I’m my own woman, living my “one wild and precious life” (to quote Mary Oliver, one of my most beloved poets). I live in my own apartment; I work hard for what I want; I dream the dreams of every artist everywhere.

When I’m with my sister, we dream our dreams together. But sometimes, when we’re apart, and life gets in the way, I find myself dreaming alone.

But at the Wild Sisterhood, there is always a sister available—a friend to listen, an artist to dream with. Since I joined the Wild Sisterhood, I do not dream alone.

Sisters—what a sweet word. (Say it out loud to yourself. What longings does it bring up? What joys do you remember; what losses?)

Mmmmm. Sisterhood. There couldn’t be a sweeter relationship between women. The recognition of one’s self in another, blood relative, or no. A sister is a sister.

Recognition can come without fame. It can come quietly, deliciously, surprisingly. This is what I love about the Wild Sisterhood. The very first time I signed in, I saw that one of my best blogging friends was signed in at the same time. Boom! Recognition! For her, for me.

And now, we were sisters.

At the Wild Sisterhood, we network with a most empowered mix of gentleness, compassion, humor and love.

Checking my (very own!) Wild Sisterhood page, my friends’ pages, and my discussions at the Wild Sisterhood is a treat that I save for the end of the day, or a reward I offer myself for getting a particularly challenging task completed. It’s delicious; it’s wild; it’s juicy (not a word I use lightly).

I feel safe logging on to the Wild Sisterhood. I have an issue with email and Facebook and even Twitter: they can cause me extreme anxiety. But the Wild Sisterhood is such an inherently safe place—I breathe a sigh of relief each time I log in.

I can’t say enough about how life-changing it was for me to join the Wild Sisterhood. It started with mustering the faith and courage to make an investment in myself—an investment that has come to be worth every penny.

The investment pays off in finding friends and connections; in meeting women from literally all over the world, women who share so many of my values.

Women who believe in their right to live empowered, positive lives, and women who are only learning to understand that empowerment and self-love are universal human rights, not privileges.

We support one another; we hold one another up. I know that if I use a discussion thread on the Wild Sisterhood to demonstrate a way that I care for myself, that it will reach and touch every woman who reads it, no matter where she lives, no matter the time of day. We are connecting.

And then there are my own lousy days. Am I the prime and paramount example of a woman constantly in love with her gorgeous self, always successful, always responsible, always joyful, always … well, perfect? Of course I’m not.

And that’s the beautiful thing about being part of a gorgeous group of women who collaborate on such personal efforts as developing self-love, and growing empowered, and actualizing themselves as artists. So often in the past, I have felt isolated in such efforts—taking e-courses alone, reading inspiring literature and blogs–but reading them alone.

At the Wild Sisterhood, I know that I don’t have to do it alone. I know that if, one day, I’m a little short on self-love, I can visit this gorgeous website, this amazing community of women, who demonstrate self-love with their words and actions. I can read their posts and be inspired and remember who I am, who I aspire to be, and all of the good things in life that I do, indeed, deserve.

And one of those “good things” that we women deserve is sisterhood. We deserve—you deserve–a safe place to speak the truth about your life, to share your interests and loves and triumphs and yes, sometimes, your struggles, too.

I have a family of sisters now and a safe place where we can speak honestly together, anytime, anywhere. The gifts offered by this amazing group of women can’t fully be described; you need to experience them for yourself, and just trust that you deserve sisterhood as much as any other woman.

You deserve to never dream alone again.

And that, my love, is why I want you to know about the Wild Sisterhood summer deal–it’s really a steal (and no, I did not intend for that to rhyme.)

(“Summer?” my friends in the northern hemisphere will ask. Hey, lady, this is Invincible Summer. It’s always summer someplace, and the Wild Sisterhood is based in Australia. Summer really is invincible!)

Right now, Jen is offering Wild Sisterhood membership for only $10 a month. That’s really a steal, and I wouldn’t lie to you, love. Check it out!