You're a Writer, Cory.

 

For a long time, I wasn't sure if I would ever come back to writing publicly. Life has a funny way of taking you exactly where you need to go, even if the path makes absolutely no sense while you're walking it. The past several years have been some of the most transformative of my life. I spent them immersed in what I can only describe as profound shadow work. If the phrase "Dark Night of the Soul" resonates with you, that's probably the closest description I can give. If you'd rather call it high-functioning depression, that's perfectly fine too. Labels have never mattered much to me. What mattered was the experience itself: questioning everything I believed about myself, dismantling old identities, confronting fears I had carefully avoided for years, and slowly discovering what remained when all the noise settled.

Somewhere in the middle of that process, I made what many people considered a rather impractical decision. I went back to university and earned a second Bachelor's degree, this time in Psychology. My first degree was in Public Relations, so at least I can officially say I know how to overthink both human behavior and branding. Psychology wasn't just another diploma to collect. It became a language that helped me understand experiences I had struggled to articulate for years.

Naturally, that path led me to Jung. I completed training in Jungian psychotherapy and completely fell in love with his work. I've been joking for years that Carl Jung is "my boy," and the fact that his initials are C.J. while mine are C.K. still makes me smile more than it probably should. His ideas about archetypes, dreams, symbolism, individuation, and the unconscious didn't give me ready-made answers, but they offered a framework that allowed me to make sense of many things I had lived through. They also reminded me that imagination isn't something to grow out of. It is one of the ways we encounter ourselves.

The funny thing is that after all those years of studying, reading, questioning, and trying to figure out who I was supposed to become, I arrived at an answer that had been quietly waiting for me all along. I want to write. More than that, I need to write. Stories have always been the place where my mind feels most alive, where psychology meets mythology, where humor can coexist with grief, and where the monsters usually turn out to be far more interesting than the heroes.

So this is me, finally giving myself permission to stop treating writing like a side project that has to justify its existence. It's what I love most, it's what I'm happiest doing, and it's what I intend to keep doing for the rest of my life. Whether I'm writing novels, essays, articles, or conversations with gods, demons, queens, or ordinary people trying to make sense of themselves, this is the work that feels meaningful to me.

If you've stumbled across this little corner of the internet, welcome. I have a feeling we're going to get along just fine.

If you enjoy stories where psychology meets mythology, where romance intertwines with the shadow, and where fictional worlds become a way of exploring the human soul, I think you'll enjoy my books.

You can find them on Amazon by searching for Cory Kay. I hope at least one of them feels like coming home.