Slow down you crazy child...

 Strange. 

In re-reading old posts, I found I knew exactly how I felt, but was just scared to share it with the world.

And now, 10 years later the complete inverse is true. I don't care what people think - I feel like that's the best thing about aging and growing - but I'm realizing that I'm not even sure how I feel most days. 

Or rather, maybe I do, but it's such a jumbled mess of emotions and antics and mundane routine and stress, that I'm not even sure there is a coherent thought in there worth sharing. Too much and too little all at once.

There is the fog of the external world, but really do I want to begin there? The world is dark. Maybe leaving it at that is the kindest way to describe that. Should I go into doomsday content about the stripping of voting rights, climate change, anti-vaxxers, Afghanistan, social media hijacking our souls? Or can I skip that bit for now?

And I don't want to share my "lifestyle," or my outfit inspiration, or how I make smoothies in the morning. I want to find something worth sharing. And maybe that is just raw emotion. Untethered. But can I access that?

Can I figure out how to express that, harness it, and make sense of it here? I have been doing so much work on myself lately, maybe that's worth sharing? What I have discovered by turning inwards? But, for all that work and breakthroughs, I sometimes think: "No, fuck it. The real problem/answer is simply that "I don't want a career. I want to sit on a porch." 

I feel like we're all living in this altered state of reality. Sometimes I have to remind myself how hard this all is, and that even on a "good" day this is fucked up and traumatic. As someone smart said: "you can't process trauma while you are in it." Will we ever get out of it? 

What happens when the pandemic "teaches" you (I always knew) that slowing down is luxurious. That life is more than work. That commutes suck. That your dream to buy a cabin in the woods where all you hear are birds & crickets is genius and maybe, now possible? BUT the world around you is trying to rebound to what it once was? How do you create the life and speed you desire, without going bankrupt, or having others refuse to acknowledge that WFH should just be the standard. How do you build an unbreakable inner peace that is forever rejecting the rigid ways of the world and following a blissed journey instead? How do you rebel with grace, conviction and success?

It's messy. 

More thoughts next time. They will be more coherent, I think.

- A