“Not all [blank]…,” he said.

You are in service of others. You feel and think deeply for others. If you cannot feel deeply about someone in your midst and that you cannot envision them as part of your purpose… then why venture forth. It’s time to say goodbye. It’s time to go.

“What do you secretly wish for?

Perhaps, this isn’t a question for me, but for him.

There is also a letter to your ex-boyfriend’s family. “Thank you for everything. You will always have a place in my heart.” You thought this would remain true, but it is a truth that has taken a different shape.

There was another letter questioning an old flame. “In retrospect, I should've. We've been very up front about everything, what makes this part any different?”

This looked like it was meant to be a blog post:_ “Three years is hard to “separate into pieces”. It's difficult to splinter yourself from a person who has affected and influenced your life and outlook for more than a thousand days. Yes, a thousand days. I calculated. Three years is a long time. That's about 24,000 hours.”_

From having 84 dead drafts—the Drafts folder is now empty.

I did not like the vibes of whatever it was I was stepping into. I was inexplicably already in a wedding dress. In a garment that didn’t feel like me, and when I had mentioned hair and makeup… they were dismissive. They insisted I looked fine. It’s my wedding day, RELAX! But I remembered I looked in the mirror and wasn’t please with the colours on my face. They insisted that all I had to do was show up to the as yet revealed top secret location. My man’ll be there. The dream dragged on. Every person I met along the way, was not a friend. It was not my kind of crowd. There were many faces of people in my past, in bodies that don’t feel familiar. And if it was a friend of the groom’s, they had such a toxic-bro vibe. There was also a great lack of diversity.

My sister made an appearance, and as she has been known to do, gently encouraged me to stay on this wrong path. She wanted me to contineu on with the sham marriage, in spite of my protestations. Even though I was resistant. She insisted. The whole thing felt so incompatible with my dream/desired life.

Valour (7 of Wands) — The momentum for me to put my all into this transformation and shift is here. What will I do with it? What could prevent me from my ascension or advancement towards my goal? I am being asked to give it all I got and to fight.

Queen of Disks — How do I begin to value myself? Today, I spent $20 on my food for the rest of the week. I made myself a lovely fried rice with my favourite shrimp. Am I remembering to take care of my body in other ways? How will I fulfill and enact my transformations if I don’t take good care and consider my body?

The Prince — There are no limits. I have the passion. I need to remember to rest and be able to sustain this creative fire to get me through. This is not a limitless energy. It is finite. I must put it into the right moment and the right effort. Trust in my unlimited creative potential. Go for it. There is impatience here so I must seize the moment!

The Princess — What are my next steps? I need to be brave and bold to move all of this forward and enact creative change. There are a few things going on but I can handle them with all this energy as long as I am mindful and not overly carefree. There’s the house maintenance stuff. Current work stuff. Future work stuff and all the other future-building I need to complete.

Focus now and dare to dream.

I can get things done right here from my studio apartment. This is what I’ve completed.

For two years, I distracted myself with the material and the physical. I allowed for more things to pile up until it started to get uncomfortable and crowded. I was overstuffed. I was overwhelmed. I had no balance, or had any sense of control with my desires and the accumulation.

I am now able to see just how gigantic that pile has become. I wouldn’t have been able to see if I didn’t slow down. If I hadn’t taken the time to reflect. To enjoy this place that I have. It is my favourite resting place, full of art on the walls. My colours. My favourite things. I’m lucky and grateful to have this safe space.

By mid-year, June/July, unless I decide to extend the lease, I will have exactly one more year left in this studio, I want that milestone to matter.

• A cramped creative space
• Lists and lists without deadlines
• Awareness of my own awareness of being a hoarder, and yet perpetuating maximalism and hoarding
• Defining boundaries and telling people how important they are but not clearly communicating them in every single one of my own interactions.
• Not following my vegetarian weekdays and omnivore weekend diet and then falling ill

I left the above list open and hanging, unpublished as I stewed in bed, with whatever illness this is. Is it a cold? A flu? COVID? No idea. I’m returning to this window to babble and then hit publish.

As part of the lecture-performance I went to, we did quite an intimate thing passing our mobile phones around in a circle last Monday (long story) and I suspect that is where/how I might have caught a bug. Somewhere in public, exposed to other people’s hygiene habits. Bah. How dreadful. I could barely raise my head for the last two days. I don’t think I had a fever but felt very dizzy. I haven’t been this sick since last year… I thought I was doing okay building my immunity and strength again. I got that weird stomach bug exactly a month ago, but it wasn’t too bad. It barely lasted a few days.

I was telling a friend that I intuited getting sick. I had this thought just as we finished passing each other’s phones around. I was so excited about the lecture-performance piece that I lost track of whether or not I sprayed my hands with hand sanitizer and if I washed my hands as soon as I got home as I normally do. Then, this. Constantly resetting, helps to train our attention to be mindful and to notice how every single thing is connected. Hands. Phones. Mouth. Eyes. Bacteria. Touch. Taste. We’re so distracted, we have all the technology to be well, to live well and yet, here we are still making ourselves sick.

I am definitely remembering my dreams more vividly, and I am dreaming more than I used to compared to when I was overworked. My dreams are bizarre, but I haven’t been disciplined enough to meditate regularly and write about them as soon as I wake.

I’ve also resurrected this Swedish deck, called the Outgrow Yourself Tarot and Oracle deck, which was originally in Swedish. It’s been lovely to spend the afternoon with it and studying it.

There is a demand for intimate self-knowledge and deep knowing.

We are surrounded by dire fires and it’s not too late to thirst and ask for water.

We don’t just need cups, we need buckets. We need vessels for all these feelings we suppress and repress. We need love, and more love still.

I am grateful to be in a place where I am so at ease talking about the feminine and the yin. Unapologetically feeling and female. Silent in my determination, to love.

I look over my shoulder and I see old and younger versions of me, so full of joy for the woman I’ve become.

I have all that I need.

Besides, it is more likely they would be in their feelings and more focused on my death, than whatever post-humous life statement I leave behind.

This is my motivation to get my life in order. The prospect of sudden death and my beloved friends and family having to deal with what I leave behind. I plan to lessen and remove things from the storage, a few times a week—let’s say three—but so far since quitting one of my part-time jobs at the end of January, I have only managed to do two legitimate excavations of mostly clothes, since there is a thrift store conveniently located across the street from me.

I feel no guilt about this. I am just stating facts. I promised myself to rest all of February and to only really “plan” and make bigger moves in March.

Friends have complimented my style, but many don’t realize I tend to love to repeat outfits. When I went away for my silent meditation retreat, I brought enough underwear but only 3 outfits for the ten-days. That time was the most “myself” and liberated I have ever felt.

February came close to that feeling. I slept so much last month and feel so clear-minded. It is quite absurd and ridiculous that rest is an exception and not the norm.