Conversations with Myself

“I think midlife is when the universe gently places her hands upon your shoulders, pulls you close, and whispers in your ear:

I’m not screwing around. It’s time. All of this pretending and performing - these coping mechanisms that you’ve developed to protect yourself from feeling inadequate and getting hurt - has to go. 

Your armor is preventing you from growing into your gifts. I understand that you needed these protections when you were small. I understand that you believed your armor could help you secure all of the things you needed to feel worthy of love and belonging, but you’re still searching and you’re more lost than ever. 

Time is growing short. There are unexplored adventures ahead of you. You can’t live the rest of your life worried about what other people think. You were born worthy of love and belonging. Courage and daring are coursing through you. You were made to live and love with your whole heart. It’s time to show up and be seen.”

• Brene Brown

HOLY FUCK! This. All of this. 

NOTHING could describe where I’m at in life better than this quote from Brene Brown. I was trying to write earlier today for this blog that I’ve been trying to start for almost 2 months and I was too scattered. I have so much to say but it just wasn’t coming together. It’s all bits and pieces and I kept getting stuck. So I worked on some other things, I came home, got undressed and I laid down in bed to relax. I wasn’t planning on sleeping but I did and I woke up 4 hours later. I got up to a dark, empty house and went downstairs. I turned on a lamp and sat down. With no real direction about what I should do I opened my phone and scrolled through IG a bit. I found two new artists - follow, and then this. 

AHA!

This is pretty much what I was trying to say earlier - I’m just a terrible writer. No really, quite terrible I assure you. 

I do this thing where I feel like I have so much to say so I try to start a blog once or twice a year but writing for that blog becomes difficult so quickly that I often abandon it within months. 

So why start again? Because I have these great conversations with Katie West where I say pretty good shit and it’s all the things I would love to say in a blog but the words never really come together when I sit down to write. The other day after I said a specific something she told me that I should write more with my photography - something that she’s very known for. I want to! I wish I could! I try! I’m just…not Katie West. If you don’t know Katie West is my best friend and quite honestly the most lovely, heartfelt, soul-bearing writers in the freaking world. So, with her giving me that little push - here I am, trying yet again. 

And that “place” that Brene is talking about in that quote up there - that is where I am.

I feel like I do this thing. I have this cycle. I get to a point in my life where I feel like I’m failing on every front so I just “jump” into the unknown and start a new life in a new place, with a new job and new people and I just hope for the best. I’ve done this since my early 20s. Normally I am chasing something to a new place, like one little thing gives me a glimmer of hope for that move but then I bet it all. I don’t take a lot of convincing I just pack up my shit and “boy bye” to everything that’s not working and hope for the best. 

I did this when I moved to Montreal when I was 21. I did this when I moved to Toronto when I was 24. I did this when I moved home 4 years ago. I did this 8-9 months ago when I moved to Texas. 

But what I’ve realized is that each time I bet big, I lose big. Ultimately my life quite literally falls apart. There’s a point where I just - lose everything and I’m so low that I see no way out. I lose my relationship, I lose my job, I lose “home”/place, I lose my friends. I jump into the reset and I work my ass off to make everything work. I build build build and at a point, I feel like I’m making my way. I get a job and I’m working hard, I have a place to live, I build a new group of friends, I have a relationship and I start treading water at a point. I relax a little, I take some breaths and I try to enjoy things but then little by little everything starts to fall apart and then disaster happens. Things happened slower when I was younger but more recently my cycle of loss has been happening quicker. 

Texas happened within 8-9 months and now, here I am again. I recently felt significant loss and I moved home to the small town I grew up in to live with my mom while I figure my shit out. 

The real question is though, WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING?

Honestly, I think I’m realizing that it keeps happening because I’m always looking for happiness externally. And, that I need to be someone else to achieve that happiness because who I am at my core is undeserving of it. I’ve always been looking for this “bigger, better life” that has never been mine. I’ve been trying to get that life by being someone who would live that life instead of simply being myself.

I don’t mean that….I’m lying about everything about me, that’s not true at all. But I do think that I very much came from a place that I hated and am ashamed of. When I was younger I couldn’t WAIT to get out of this small ass town and leave everything behind including my family and who I was. 

I feel like for my entire life I’ve been chasing a life that I was never meant to have. I wanted to leave here, I wanted to go to college, I wanted to live in a big city. I wanted to earn a good living, I wanted to have great friends, find someone who loved me and travel. I wanted to be the one who got out and lived an amazing life. 

And I tried! I tried again and again and again but each time I tried, what I did was survey the environment. I took in who was around me, I took in the environment in which I worked and where I lived and I tried to be who I needed to be in order to fit into that. I’m not saying that I was always great at this, I think my true self always came through in one way or another because ultimately I’ve never “fit” anywhere but holy hell did I try. 

I think I gained a lot from all of that if I’m honest. I’ve had so many experiences and adventures but ultimately I ended up exactly where that quote mentioned:

Mid-life (or almost) and completely and utterly lost. 

I don’t have anything. I have no home. I have no money. I have nowhere I feel at home. I have no real direction. I have no relationship or love. I do have a job but one that I often question. 

So currently, I’m in therapy. I go weekly and I speak with “S” about a ton of stuff that is so crazy and so deep but also exactly what I need. We talk about healing, we talk about hope, about faith, about self, about the universe and everything being connected. The majority of the conversations we have I’ve never had before in my life. All, completely worthwhile and I think exactly what I need but all very very big and often overwhelming. It’s sparked a lot of change within me already and I’ve only been seeing “S” for a little over a month.

Outside of that, I’m doing my best to detach from everything that is toxic. I’m living so slowly and so quietly. I’m not pushing or fighting for anything. I’m literally just trying to “be” every single day. I listen to myself, I think about what I feel and what I need and I do my best every single day to give that to myself. And I just try to take in good things. I’m reading, I’m listening to podcasts and watching TedTalks and certain interviews on YouTube. All with the same themes that we talk about in therapy. 

And for right now anyway, that’s what this blog is going to be about. Whatever journey it is that I’m on and what I find along the way.