I recently re-started editing my book. As you may or may not remember these are the edits I forced during the quarantine and the results were a mess, to put it kindly. I had to leave it alone for a while and then reacquaint myself with my words. It required a lot of “killing my darlings” which was by turns painful and wonderful. It got me thinking about Rapunzel.

After Rapunzel was banished from her tower prison she ended up in the desert pregnant and alone eventually giving birth to twins. The Prince, who had been cursed by the enchantress to wander the world was now blind. They found each other and Rapunzel’s tears cured his blindness and then they moved back to his kingdom for happily ever after.

This is where my questions start. After the prince wandered for years and Rapunzel was a single mother, they must have changed. She’d done things on her own in her own way and he moved through the world differently after having been a pampered prince reduced to poverty. It must have been an adjustment. They’d both experienced trauma and had to find their way back to each other, likely over and over again.

It’s what I had to do over this month and a half—find my way back to my words after, let’s be honest, a global trauma. There were times I wondered if I just wasn’t a writer anymore. And yet I did get back to my words and reminded myself that I’m always a writer. I like to think Rapunzel and her prince were able to love each other again despite all the changes just as I fell in love with my words again.

P.S. To my American readers, Happy Thanksgiving!