I’m not allowed to write on this blog at night. It becomes a big gaping hole in which to throw every morose emotion I’ve ever felt in my life and to repeat stories I’ve already told a million times. I used to write here as a daily journal and allowed comments so that anyone feeling similarly could tell me their stories too. However, moderating comments is a burden I find difficult. I’ve attempted to disable them but I’m not sure I can. There’s no button on this blog template that says PRESS HERE TO PREVENT ALL COMMENTING. So this is an experiment. My plan was to ditch this blog all together. I still might. Old news? Old feelings? Old chapter?
I AM in a new chapter of my life and I don’t know how to navigate it entirely. I haven’t written it yet, I’m still in the outlining phase. Part of my new chapter is to rebuild my writing discipline and blogs are great for that.
A major theme for this new chapter is bringing back to my life all those things I loved as a kid, things that made me happy, that filled my time and drove my curiosity. I could never be doing this without the therapy I got from Slovick – the best therapist I could possibly have landed right at the moment I needed her skills the most. She unlocked a part of myself so long buried and suppressed I forgot she even existed.
The happy child self inside of me.
One of the things that helped burst it open was dipping my sore summer feet into Lithia creek on my first Vespa trip to Ashland and the first time I’d been there for more than a stopover since I was a teen. Slovick gave me the key and Lithia creek was the door. I opened that fucker up and that happy child self has put something back in me that I desperately needed and every day I bring more and more of her back.
No, I’m not turning infantile. I worry that if anyone reads this it will sound like I’m trying to become a child again in some regression therapy on a yoga matt surrounded by the bells and bowls of new age charlatans. No power on earth could make me wish to actually BE a child or child like again. I’m just integrating a suppressed part of myself back into the whole of who I am.
Here’s what I see as the highlights of this new emerging chapter in life:
Finding as many opportunities to put my feet in creeks and rivers as possible.
Get back to just being a happy weekend lush and not a maintenance alcoholic.
Get rid of 80 lbs of weight.
Make some cool Barbie doll outfits for some fun shoots.
Float around the garden in kaftans more often.
Write a little bit every single day.
Get my fitness level up so when I visit Colorado I don’t feel like my lungs are going to explode just standing around.
Sitting here at my desk in my mom’s old living room feels a little like a homecoming. I’m not happy my mom has to be in care (for her sake – because it’s an awful reality for her and if I could have afforded to pay for full time help to keep her at home in a safe way – I would have) but I AM happy to have a space away from the rest of our space in which to write without interruption and without anyone else’s energy to contend with.
I’m sitting here listening to Fleetwood Mac smiling my ass off. Just smiling my ass off.
It would be infinitely rad if that could be literally true.
It’s time for me to go prepare some zucchinis and onions for canning. Tomorrow I will sit down again for at least a small writing sesh. Not sure if I’ll do it here or in documents. Soon I’ll actually work on one of my long neglected projects that are nipping at my heels.