“A story has no beginning or end; arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.”
I have been here many times in the last six years.
Over and over again, I return, desperately willing the words out of my head to be written.
Over and over again, I leave, unwilling to fully walk through this door again but also unwilling to firmly close it behind me.
This familiar dance has lead me back here once more – perhaps only for the moment, but back nonetheless. Looking back through all my old drafts over the years has given me such a sense of growth and power; I know the person who wrote those words, and the fondness I feel for them is so deep and loving, like an old friend who saw me through the worst of times resurfacing for a cup of coffee. No matter what else is happening in my life, it’s insanely comforting to remember that I am still me.
I guess we are beginning again.
Stay Alive [2018]
Pretty much immediately, the repercussions of what I undertaken started to shake me. The only way to start walking down a dark uneasy path is to simply take a deep breath and do it, and boy did I.
Self awareness is a tricky thing. In all my years of writing, reflecting, encouraging open and honest conversations, breathing – I had always assumed I had myself figured out. I watch people’s reactions closely, I listen to their words, I am engaged and I am empathetic, these have always been traits I associate with people who have some things figured out. What this touted self awareness didn’t reveal to me however, was all the old emotions I assumed I had moved past, had actually just been buried so deeply that I couldn’t access them anymore. Self awareness be damned, I definitely didn’t see that one coming.
Everything that happens is from now on
This is pouring rain
This is paralyzed
And so it happened, I started the process of excavation, naive to the fact that I would actually have to unearth some shit, examine and wade through it. In this last year I have been shocked at each new discovery, uncomfortable in the knowledge of how deeply I have buried every emotion related to actually showing emotion, brought to tears more times than I can count because I have finally realized just how far I push people away without ever having known it. Making it all worse is knowing that I cannot just change and become someone new and better, and I am will fail many times attempting to overcome it all.
I could take this moment to detail all the ways in which I am a perfectionist, all the reasons why even the smallest failure hits me in the face like a ton of bricks, bringing pain and the deepest shame you could imagine. I could, but I won’t because ‘perfectionist’ is such a lazy adjective used to describe something much harder to admit. I am not a perfectionist for the sake of perfection, I am just absolutely terrified of making a mistake and people (finally) realizing I am actually someone who’s shitty and not worth their time.
By now you have a good idea what being in my head is like, and if you know me at all, it likely confuses you. Don’t be alarmed, it confuses me too, because these thoughts do not match up with who I have believed I am all these years. They’ve been lurking in the background, ignored because they’re too dark to be real; engaged and empathetic people don’t let terror rule them, they don’t honestly believe they are fraudulent pieces of shit.
But that’s the goddamn truth about burying emotions – they never stay buried.
All of this is simply background to what comes next, why this particular piece of writing has stayed in my drafts folder for nearly a year while I work up the nerve to tell the story. My story. Why and to whom
Queen [2021]
“I will be dying and so will you, and so will everyone here. That’s what I want to explore. We’re all hurtling towards death, yet here we are for the moment, alive. Each of us knowing we’re going to die, each of us secretly believing we won’t.”
I think I have been trying to write this post for years. It has always lived in the back of my head, writing itself, winding itself through my body and squeezing parts of my heart every time I allow it to start truly sinking in. There is nothing easy or eloquent about this entry.
I think I am going to die.
Yes, I know we are all going to die, it’s one of the few things we all know for certain in this life. We are born, we live, and we die – it’s not the dying I am afraid of, it’s the not living that terrifies me the most. Somewhere deep in my soul, I feel like my time is so limited now, as though I just know that I am not meant to carry on well into my nineties. This thought squeezes at my heart and intuition until it’s hard to breathe, and this is where I get to the point of this post you wish you’d never started reading.
Today, I am going to say goodbye.
As a planner, this make a lot of sense to me, and it eases the anxiety I feel. Planning your final goodbye to the world is awkwardly cathartic, like sweeping the floor or making the bed. A strange and tidy bow on top of extreme sadness – I have always had a gift of making things harder and more dramatic than they should be sometimes.
A New View [2023]
There is nothing quite like getting everything you ever wanted.
How funny life is, am I right? We work and work toward our goals, pushing ahead, always striving for more and better. When we achieve ‘the thing’, we are both surprised and unfulfilled, already busy creating the next set of goals to reach for and barely stopping long enough to look around and just appreciate what we did.
Oh, that doesn’t sound like you? Just me? Okay.
Well this year, I got everything I ever wanted and worked for, and I have no idea how to process it because I am very busy just trying to survive within in it – so let’s go on that journey shall we?
Welcome to my new life in Amsterdam.
Unexpected Liberation 