Lately, I have been feeling that spark in me again.

Not just a small flicker.
Not just another sudden idea passing through my head at midnight, waving dramatically before disappearing into the fog of all the other things I said I would maybe, eventually, one day create.

No.

This feels older than that.

It feels like something in my bones remembering its own language. Like my fingertips have started tingling with tiny sparks again. Like some hidden part of me, the part I had almost forgotten how to reach, has been quietly gathering matches in the dark and is now standing there with a grin, asking:

So. Are we doing this again?

And maybe we are.

Maybe this is what I felt like before the world got too loud.

Or maybe not the world.
Maybe just the wrong people.

The people who tried to make me smaller. Quieter. Easier to understand. Easier to handle. Less disruptive. Less strange. Less full of feeling and fire and thoughts that refused to stand in a straight line.

The people who looked at my difference like it was a problem to solve instead of a kind of magic.

And for a while, maybe I believed them.

Maybe I folded parts of myself away without even noticing. Maybe I became more careful. More controlled. More reasonable. More afraid of taking up the exact kind of space I was born to fill.

But, well.

Joke’s on all of them.

Against all odds, I survived. I grew. I conquered things I should never have had to fight in the first place. And I am still here.

Not untouched.
Not unchanged.
Not perfectly healed and glowing on some untouchable little moonbeam of enlightenment.

But here.

And lately, it feels like I am finding my way back to my old self, piece by piece. Step by step. Spark by spark.

The fireheart.
The alchemist.
The dreamer.
The girl with entire worlds living behind her eyes.

All the beautiful evolutions of myself are slowly finding their way back home.

To me.

I am claiming back my energy now. Not because I am flawless. Not because I have forgotten what broke me. Not because everything suddenly makes sense.

But because I am tired of treating my own magic like something I need permission to use.

I am ready to create again.

Fearlessly. Boldly. With full force.

Like I used to when I was younger.

Because something almost no one knows about me — maybe truly no one — is that I used to write fiction all the time.

Short stories.
Little poems.
Scripts.
Chapters.
Characters who appeared silently in my head one day and then refused to leave.

Worlds inspired by my favourite stories, and worlds that were entirely mine.

And I wrote so fearlessly back then.

I did not think about whether it was good enough. I did not worry about whether it made sense to anyone else. I did not wait until I had the perfect plan, the perfect structure, the perfect anything.

I just wrote.

I let the ideas spill onto paper.
I trusted whatever arrived.
I knew how to turn a thought into a universe.

And that is the version of me I want to reconnect with.

Not because I want to become younger again.
Not because I want to erase the woman I am now.

I love this version of myself too.

The woman who writes about real things. Real struggles. Real feelings. Real people. Herself. Her story. Her healing. The woman who opens her chest carefully and turns what she finds there into words. That kind of writing has saved me in ways I probably do not even fully understand yet.

But I think I am ready to invite another part of me back into the writer’s room.

The dreamer.

The world-builder.

The girl who could turn a quiet afternoon into a kingdom.

The one who did not only write about what hurt, but also about what could exist beyond it.

Lately, I have been surrounded by art again. Old pieces of mine. Beautiful creations from other artists. Stories I love. Characters I once knew by heart. Little reminders of all the worlds that shaped me before I even knew I was becoming someone.

And again and again, I felt it.

That tingle in my fingers.
That spark I could not quite name yet.

But I knew it was there.

And I knew it was familiar.

Maybe this is me unlocking the cage my younger self has been hiding in for too long.

Maybe this is me unleashing another jolt of power the world once taught me to put away.

Maybe this is divine energy flowing back into me, asking not to be ignored this time.

I would be lying, though, if I said starting this new chapter with myself was as easy as dreaming about it.

Because dreaming is easy.

Talking about it is easy.

Romanticising the future version of myself who writes books, creates worlds, finishes projects, reads more, shares more, lives louder and somehow also remembers to drink enough water — very easy.

Actually becoming her?

A little more inconvenient.

A little less aesthetic.

A little more: open the document, Ines.

But I am getting better.

Day by day, I am trying to shake myself out of that familiar space of “I want to do this” and “I should really start that” and “one day I will finally become the kind of person who…”

No.

I do not want to spend my whole life admiring the idea of myself from a distance.

I want to meet her.

I want to become her by doing the things.

Messily. Imperfectly. Dramatically, probably. With snacks, doubt, too many tabs open and at least one unnecessary emotional spiral somewhere along the way.

But doing them.

Because the only way to create is by creating.

Not by waiting until I feel ready enough.
Not by planning the perfect beginning.
Not by demanding that the first draft already looks like a masterpiece wearing perfume.

Art is messy.

Unplanned.

Raw.

A little inconvenient.

A little divine.

And maybe that is exactly why I need it again.

So I will not sit here and tell you what I want for the future as if I am making another soft little wish into the universe and then politely leaving it there.

I am going to tell you what I am going to do.

I am going to write.

I am going to read.

I am going to create my own stories while continuing to tell my own.

I am going to build worlds and return to the ones I abandoned. I am going to listen for the characters who might still remember my name. I am going to make art out of the fire, the softness, the wounds, the wonder, the chaos and whatever strange little moonlit thing decides to knock on my door next.

I am going to be artistic and bold and real.

Not someday.

Now.

I do not know yet where I am going.

I do not know where these roads will lead me.

But I can feel the spark again.

And this time, I am not putting it out.