Last month I wrote about restrictions and while it was challenging, my resiliency was deepened. It had appeared the end of November was bringing opportunity and connection, but since then, the struggle seems to have doubled.
I’m grateful to have tools to help me cope and process, yet this elongated period of the inopportune has pushed me toward emotional limits I did not know I was capable of. To put it simply, life feels very lonely and unsupportive of my energies at the moment. And it fucking sucks.
What fascinates me, is that even while experiencing an usually high amount of rejection and othering, I still don’t feel hopeless for my future. Actually, because I intuit a deeply positive shift on the horizon, I’m feeling pretty OK to be here. So I’ve taken further time to really reflect on what this period could be teaching me and I uncovered a few more nuggets.
So much of these past twelve months had me create space for the new. Less groups, less friends, less energies devoted to habits/people/cultures that don’t align with my spiritual and personal values. This brutal shedding was like a caterpillar, who turns to a goopy ooze before breaking out as that butterfly. And from there came awarenesses I hadn’t anticipated, re-shaping my identity.
Things like realizing just how much time I need alone to center my authentic thoughts and feelings. That most of the family I grew up with are not supportive people for me to hold close in my life due to barriers like alcoholism, mental illness and resentment from unprocessed traumas. And that for maybe the first time, with everything I have accomplished through seemingly insurmountable obstacles, has me understanding my worth and just how much I deserve.
I am thinking about all that I would like to bring into this new chapter of my life. I am thinking about how it’s less about career accolades or social presence, centering the quiet and intimate. How a born and bred New Yorker, still living at an epicenter of culture and activity, wants to slow it all down, to make choices that are intentional, calm, and heartfelt.
I’m envisioning myself in nature. The woods, a desert, beaches, mountains. Screeching cars and shouting neighbors transforming to ballads of chickadees and rain droplets. Back during peak covid, I would take solitary walks around my neighborhood’s reservoir. It was one of the rare spaces in Brooklyn I truly felt alone amongst the the trees. I’d cry, talk with the wind, lament, pray and was held through it all amongst the fallen leaves or snowy patches.
I’m yearning for partnership. The kind of partnership with a man where the theme that bonds us is overflowing emotion. The capacity to keep giving from the place of our hearts. I see empathic tears. Grand, overwhelming, powerful companionship that at one point felt impossible encounter, now to know it’s true. Love is actually true. I’m seeing laughs at the mundane and meditations about purpose. I’m dreaming of a soulmate coming in to not complete me, but build with me, a positive, brighter, loving world.
I am reflecting on so much I’ve been influenced to believe that now feels like a lie. And in these turbulent times I’m sitting tight, patiently waiting for those to embody the message of unity that is so desperately needed to ignite us toward better society. I don’t know if I have that in my current circumstances, so it seems adjustments are needed to explore and see what else is out there.
Through my past decade of experimenting I’ve been able to taste that the life I’m forecasting to enter is actually possible. Now I’m ready to integrate. And I’m committed to take those steps to be there. First within myself, then through the place I live, the way I work, and with folks I connect to.
Even if the spaces I end up are physically cold, if my heart feels warm, I’ll know I’m home.