POV: I Am Writing You A Letter N° 2

It is October and everything I have been hiding from, avoiding, not looking in the eyes have been knocking on my dreams. It has been a quiet and immersive kind of not-looking-at-it where I often can disillusion myself to my own way of living my life through the peripherals - or without them.

I keep going through waves of “I am going to get serious about…” myself, my life, my writing, my love, my passions. And I keep coming back to this place of do I love what I love because it is familiar or because I truly connect with it? Do I love what I love because it enables the story I have had of myself? Because I do not know how to be anything other than the person who is pursing a certain lineage of life? And the thing is, I really am in some ways. But the pervasive and subconscious tendency to lean my actions towards perfection rears its head in many insidious ways.

Today, as I write to you, I have finished the first of four exams for the full-time french course I’ve been taking. I remind myself of this endeavour that will carry me through the next year when I realize it’s been 3 weeks since I shared any writing. And last week I met my partners parents for the first time. And before that I seriously thought about actively forgiving my mother after 8 months of silence (something that has been passive for a while, a quiet acknowledgement within myself that does nothing to externally change our relationship).

I have, for the first time since moving in, re-arranged my entire apartment. I took my vacuum apart and completely cleaned it. I read Wuthering heights again. I have gone to therapy almost every single week since the beginning of February. I have had a lot of really challenging and opening conversations.

I made a bunch of art and started compiling my next poetry book. I went through my clothes and finally let go of some things. I have kept my sheets clean. I have had my heart broken and then put back together again with gold. I watched all of Sex Education. I cried old and new tears. I got new shower curtains and deep cleaned my bathroom - and my partners.

I didn’t re-do my tarot course or publish a bunch of pieces or write in my journal or advertise myself the way I said I would and haven’t really done a lot of tarot readings. I’ve forgotten to water all of my plants more than a few times, I’ve let things in the fridge go bad and right now there is a pile of garbage on my balcony that squirrels have gotten into and for some reason there is a lot of dirt on everything. Before cleaning my vacuum I left it on the balcony because it was somehow infested with moths and I couldn't bare to face it for 2 weeks. I have compost in my freezer from a month ago and really need to go grocery shopping.

I’ve been talking more about my sexual fantasies and in that having the opportunity to experience them. I’ve been talking more about my fears and then having the opportunity to be held in them. I saw two rainbows and went on two hikes and have eaten a lot of french cheese and helped plan an event. I’ve deleted or logged out of instagram probably 100 times. I sharted in my partners white sweat pants and we laughed so hard when I told him I almost peed in another pair. I saved a bee, made a lot of great food and wore a lot of great outfits and most of it lives in my head or my camera roll. I see 222 every single day.

I haven’t transcribed my oracle deck. I haven’t made the reels or sent the apologies I’ve been thinking about for a year or gotten my license plates changed or fixed that thing on the body of my car or sold any of that stuff that is sitting on a pile. I keep saying I’m going to talk to so-and-so about doing tarot readings but then I don’t. I keep saying I will reach out to that friend but then forget. I say I’m not going to smoke weed anymore!!!! And then a friend offers me a puff and I take one and I love it and I go home and nothing in me or my life is ruined or in danger and I wonder why I keep treating myself like an addict. To what? Procrastination? Small pleasures? Balance?

I forget to do yoga for a while, or admit that I’m just not ready to face whatever it is that I seem to be avoiding and in that find the avoidance of letting myself have the joy of finishing anything ever because everything is all connected. So if I haven’t made that reel or put that idea into action or picked up that book or transcribed that poem than everything else I have done has lead to nothing. And I write this, laughing at myself because fuck!!!!! It’s so!!! Pervasive! and persuasive and perverse.

What I am trying to say is that I keep getting myself down about not “being serious” in my life and catching myself having to ask what the fuck that even means. What I’m learning is that this is a subtle way of making small the things I’m doing. It’s the quiet perfectionist in me that is still addicted to the praise of “job well done” and not really being sure what that translates to in my actual life. Have I done enough when I don’t feel scared? When I have been forgiven for all my mistakes? When I have made every meal for a week? Have posted enough things?

Not me literally making this entire platform to support an authentic way of sharing and connecting and then getting upset I haven’t posted a podcast in a while, opening up the app to record it and realizing that I still have one from last month I “didn’t finish” that is of course a sign that I couldn’t possibly start another. Or that I couldn’t possibly just slap an outro on it and post it anyway, not caring if I don’t even remember what it in there.

As I share this with you I am realizing that I am in fact getting serious… about being human. About being in the throws of a Saturn Return and letting everything be upside down. Of learning a new language, literally and in loving. Getting serious about seeing the patterns and recognizing the world talking to me and just letting go of my own fucking narrative that completely disables me from allowing myself the grace of recognition for doing anything in being alive.

I feel guilty and also proud. I feel ashamed and also liberated. I am hella in that aries-libra nodes axis that is opposing my own lessons in life directly. I just want to be here and know that in being here, I can do stuff here instead of having to do stuff in order to validate my being here. Do you know what I mean? Like sometimes we’re allowed to just fucking exist! I’m allowed to exist and sometimes, oftentimes, when I stop resisting what that needs to look like I can actually BE in my life instead of OPTIMIZING my life. I don’t need to optimize my existence - none of us do.

When I started writing this today a friend asked me if I wanted to drive with them to get a kitten. I obviously said yes, feeling ashamed that I was “abandoning” my words on a computer screen that would be here when I got back for a real life experience. For 90 minutes a kitten slept on my feet, I got a starbucks drink and ate taco bell and almost shit my pants by the time we were back in the city stuck in traffic and it was worth it and guess what? Here I am, finishing this. Because I want to. Because I allowed myself to have a single puff of weed. Because I’m going to go study in a hot bath with candles lit and incense burning. Because the day is perfect even though it was unplanned. Because I finished my first exam today and realized I really do know everything that I need to. Because everything always happens in appropriate timing. Because I can trust myself.

xo,
Fo