My words went live on Red Tent Living for the first time on my 40th birthday. Ten years and over 60 posts later, I now know that they were more than words. They’ve always been so much more than words. In the space so generously offered to me, I gave generously back. I let you into my musings, my groanings, my hopes. Ten years of writing for this community has formed a repository for my heart.
At first, I needed a place to process my work in anti-sex trafficking. My soul was cracking open and longed to be witnessed by women who cared. I wrote about the girl staying in my home and the ones I passed in high school hallways and the innocent eyes in seventh grade classrooms. Eventually, I told you about the men behind it all, at times full of compassion and ultimately, overcome by the darkness of it all. You held my journey through and out of the world of human trafficking.
And so, I began to write about life on the other side of intense activism: about marriage and perfectionism and faith and writing and passion and dashed hopes. I also wrote about stepping in dog shit. You held space for it all.
The thread I started pulling on through my writing was my interest in the feminine story: my grandmother, my daughters, Ottoman queens. And though it felt like a major transition in the middle of the last decade, it was actually just a minor shift: I’ve been searching for and telling and writing stories of women for a long time.
Recently my youngest graduated from high school, and I made her a photo book. As you know, combing through years of pictures evokes all sorts of emotions and memories. I decided to make a family book at the same time, starting with the first photo all five of us were in and choosing the best one each year for the subsequent 18 years. As our bodies and faces change from page to page, they remind me of who we were in that season. They are markers of joy and pain, celebration and stress. They mark the story of us.
Likewise, looking back over 10 years of contributions to Red Tent Living has been a sweet reminder of who I have been in different seasons. Because I put my heart to words, they, too, are markers of joy and pain, celebration and stress. They mark the story of a decade of discovery—myself and, also, deep relationships with dear women. I honor 40-year-old me, just beginning to process out loud. I also honor fellow Red Tent women who have become friends in the journey.
It is no small thing to end well.
Be it a job, a calling, a relationship, a ministry, a business, a nonprofit…an online writing community. In fact, in my experience some of my bravest decisions involve ending, closing, or walking away. I’ve written about a few of those in this space. And so it is with courage, with hope for what’s to come, and with deep gratitude for what has been that we writers say goodbye to this beautiful, generous, life-giving space. I’m quite proud of us!
I know for most of us, our words will find other places to make a home. May our readers be as warm and welcoming as you have been. Thank you dear ones, for honoring me by bearing witness to my heart. You have offered a gift I will treasure. My hope for you is to honor what you’ve received in this online community and take it into yours; that you, too, will find witness to your heart the way women always have inside the red tent.
Beth Bruno lives in Colorado where she and her husband get to create life-giving experiences and opportunities for aha moments around God and story. As owners of ReStory Counseling, they do this alongside a team of story-informed coaches and counselors. After living in Turkey for almost a decade, she designed and leads the boutique Lost Women of Turkey Pilgrimage for women each year. With the last of her three kids close to flying the nest, you may soon find her living in one of the cave homes of Cappadocia.