Britney Spears Posts About ‘Sadness and Darkness’ in Return to Instagram: ‘The Woman in Me Will Make Sure I Find My Destination’

Britney Spears is back on Instagram doing what she does: dancing and sharing small glimpses into her private life. The singer who deactivated her Insta account on Nov. 2 before quietly reactivating it less than a month later, took to her feed over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend to offer up a bit of both in a clip in which she danced to Adele’s “Send My Love (To Your New Lover)” while musing about the light that comes after darkness.

While the post now has a benign comment about the singer’s leopard-print outfit and shoes (“I feel pretty in that bathing suit… pssss gotta find those Mary Jane shoes”), according to People, the now-deleted original message was more intense and emotional. “Haven’t found my party dress for this year 👗… Reflecting is good for the soul… Sometimes when hard things happen, good things come from it and we learn… I learned that a real note of expression with emotion speaks volumes for us all!!,” Spears wrote in the since-wiped post.

“Call it childish, silly, annoying… We grow up to become women but do you dare keep the most sensitive part of the soul and allow it to rebel… the child within must speak in the most vulnerable of times,” she continued in the note. “Sadness and darkness survive to make an understanding of losing someone and of the hurt and pain… Sometimes through suffering and ugliness and sacrifice, extremely rare and beautiful things can be manifested and shared that can touch another person so they understand they are not alone… and yet the woman in me will make sure I find my destination.”

While the overall message felt portentous, Spears ended it with a very relatable p.s. about going ham on the turkey over the weekend. “I can’t even look at food after this Thanksgiving,” she wrote. “I cheated I was so bad… but it felt so damn good… forgive me father.”

Spears briefly deactivated her Instagram account early last month in the midst of ex-husband Kevin Federline’s press tour for his tell-all memoir, You Thought You Knew, in which he made shocking allegations about what he said was Spears’ unpredictable behavior as a young wife and mother, including allegations that she drank wine while pregnant with their children and did cocaine while she was breastfeeding. Spears has hit back at what she has deemed “constant gaslighting” from Federline in seeming response to the memoir’s allegations; the couple were married from 2004-2007 and share two adult children.

Since her return to Instagram, Spears posted about getting “stuck in Mexico for two weeks” last month, shared the usual compliment of dancing videos, appeared to tease an upcoming jewelry line and re-posted the poignant message “F–k normal I want magic.”