Still Here, Still Writing

By Cliff Potts, CSO, and Editor-in-Chief of WPS News

There’s a moment that comes, usually later than we expect, when you realize you’re done trying to convince people that you matter.

Not in a bitter way. Not in an angry way. Just… done.

I don’t resent people. That’s the strange part. I don’t want anyone hurt. I don’t want anyone to go through the things I’ve gone through. I know what that kind of weight feels like, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. But caring and being cared about are not the same thing, and over time that gap can widen until it’s impossible to ignore.

Friends drift. Messages go unanswered. The world keeps moving as if your absence wouldn’t register for a long time—if at all. It’s not cruelty so much as indifference, which somehow cuts deeper. You start to understand how easy it is for someone to quietly vanish while everyone assumes someone else is paying attention.

Some of this, I’ll admit, is self-exile. Life took me far from where I started. I made choices. I followed love. And I lost it in the most permanent way possible. Two months ago, writing that sentence would have left me shattered. Today, it still hurts—but it doesn’t break me. That’s how I know something is healing, even if it’s slow and uneven.

She was my everything. That hasn’t changed. And part of the reason I keep going—writing, documenting, insisting on staying visible—is because remembering someone well is a form of resistance. If I’m still here, then so is she, at least a little.

People sometimes mistake persistence for ego. They see self-promotion and assume vanity. What they don’t see is the fatigue underneath—the exhaustion of shrinking, of waiting, of hoping someone else will validate the work or the life.

I’m done with that part.

I’m still writing because I can. I’m still publishing because the words don’t stop coming. I’m still here because I have a dog who takes over the bed, a house that feels safe, and a quiet but steady sense that my presence still counts, even if it isn’t loudly acknowledged.

Maybe I’ll live to be ninety-nine.
Just to irritate the people who wrote me off early.
Just to outlast the ones who disappeared when it mattered.
Just to annoy the naysayers who mistook silence for absence.
Just to frustrate the people who hid in the shadows and waited for me to fade.
Just to prove that endurance is sometimes the only rebuttal you need.

Or maybe I won’t.

Either way, while I’m here, I’m not going to fade politely into the background.

I’ll keep telling the truth.
I’ll keep remembering who matters.
And I’ll keep showing up—whether anyone is watching or not.