Seven months ago I was in the middle of heartbreak. I was smoking cigarettes and weed, drinking, starving myself, purging, over exercising, and too anxious to work. I had just lost the job I had been planning to return to in Vermont, the girlfriend I was planning on going back there with, and therefore the beautiful apartment we had picked to live in for our second year together. I had also just quit the job I had at home, and was bleeding money because I was going out drinking too much. My body was a wreck, my mind a mess, and my soul…had probably left my body in order to preserve itself. I felt lost, betrayed, alone, broken, confused, and entirely lacking direction. I had essentially agreed to put my life on hold for two years while my ex finished her degree, and the only plans I had for the future were built around her. We were going to hike The Long Trail, travel South America, and love and laugh our way through the rest of our lives together. I was even considering abandoning my lifelong dream of creating a healing sanctuary/alternative community because she didn’t want to be a part of it. My eating disorder and anxiety were ruling (and destroying) my life and my bank account was reminding me that my options were limited.
I remember laying in bed one day, after running myself sick and vomiting all morning, staring at the wall where the dried lavender she had picked for me hung, thinking about the woman she had cheated on me with and for whom she left me. I knew she had traveled, was a yoga and spin instructor, that they landscaped together, and she designed her own tattoos. For some reason, these small bits of information drove me insane. I built her up in my mind as this mystical, magical, ripped, worldly goddess with whom I could never compete. After all, there had to be something drastically better about her if my ex was willing to throw away over a year of beauty and growth with me to pursue her. I laid there and I imagined how I wished I was, a vegan, Spanish-speaking, traveling, yoga and meditation doing, runner, who made her own kombucha and kimchi, played a string instrument, knew about the lunar cycle, and had found a sense of spirituality. I scoffed, cried, and thought to myself “there’s no way I could ever get from here, this filthy, ignorant, unhealthy lifestyle, to there.” That thought was immediately followed by one of those thoughts that wasn’t even mine, one that I didn’t conjure up in my consciousness but came from a deeper place, my unconscious, the universe, a goddess, however you understand those messages that come to you without your consent, “yes you absolutely can. You just have to start right now.”
I wish I could say, “and so I did! I never touched a cigarette again, I found god(dess), I began furiously reading about nutrition and herbalism, I became celibate, I meditated & fasted for 21 days and I was reborn.” But I’m human, and we’re messy, and our egos are complex, and we are stubborn, funny little creatures.
In my day-to-day life, the changes were vastly more subtle than that, yet as I reflect on the past half-year, the changes suddenly seem quite rapid. Just like most westerns, I feel like change isn’t extreme enough unless it happens immediately, I wanted that instant gratification, I wanted my new life to be exactly how I imagined and hoped it would be right-the-fuck-now.
Well, clearly that wasn’t going to happen. And even thought I felt that my life was so completely broken and fucked in that moment that it could and should have spurred drastic, immediate change, I knew it wasn’t realistic. So I took a deep breath. I picked one thing. Not eating meat, the absence of doing something, that seemed easy enough. I started there. I slipped up. I had been a vegetarian for 10 years but that was over 3 years ago and meat is really tasty. But it was something, and all I needed was something to hold onto.
This blog is about my journey into the person I have always wanted to be, the person I imagined, both out of jealousy and competition with this other woman but mostly the person I had craved to become for as long as I could remember. It’s about the fuck-ups, the losses, the gains, the stumbling, the discovering, the learning, the growing, the evolving, the relapsing, the doing, becoming, undoing, and creating that has defined the past seven months and continues to shape my future. It’s about love, loss, heartache, sex, food, health, spirituality, herbalism, yoga, exercise, homesteading, travel, meditation, writing, art, support, forgiveness, sobriety, energy, our very existence and purpose in life. This is documentation of my unfolding and exposing the perfection that has always existed within me, the dreams that I thought were intangible that turned out to be blossoming inside my chest without me even knowing.
Mom, I’m sorry for some of the things I’ll be writing about. You’ll have to hear me talk about sex and drugs and things that will likely make you and any other relatives uncomfortable. But you had to have known that these would all be facets of my life when you first held me. All the mess, all the shit, all the beauty, it’s all part of what you agreed to let me experience when you brought me into this world. It’s all part of my journey, and the paths of so many other people. So many other souls that feel trapped inside impossibility with bodies and minds waiting to discover that they’ve actually been whole and flourishing that entire time. So many other people who are waiting, searching, expecting the life they want to just land in their lap one day, or to be available for purchase on Amazon Prime. It’s the blood, sweat, and tears that need to be exposed and made vulnerable, that need to be discussed and worshipped, that need acknowledgement and validation and expression. It’s for you. It’s for me. It’s for anyone and everyone who is willing to entertain my ramblings and maybe even find bits of words that resonate with them and help launch them into their own periods of rapid growth. Or slow change. Or whatever they need in that moment because we are the wisest, most capable, and best equipped for handling, holding, and nourishing our own minds, bodies, and souls.
What I have learned may not apply to you. Honestly, it’s not supposed to. I cannot tell you or anyone else what to do, how to live, where to find happiness. Only you can do that. Only you have the answers and information that you need in order to move forward with a life that you can be proud of, can be content with, can finding meaning in. All I can do is share my experiences, and be honest about my journey. This is a way for me to track and express the massive amounts of growth and change and blossoming and evolving and flourishing that I have done and continue to do every day. A way for me to express the messages that have been and continue to be exploding out of my chest with enthusiasm, excitement, and electricity.
I’m just one soul stumbling through this beautiful universe in a body that I believe is sacred. I believe in the plan that is unfolding before me, in the divine who holds and supports me, in forgiveness, in vulnerability. Everything in moderation, including change. Come learn with me.
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