dear 2008,
i choose this picture to go with this letter not because it is a great photo-it is out of focus, the lawn has ugly straw covered patches, my face is cut off….but none the less, its fitting because i am free and happy. i want to have more moments like this. i want to start feeling like this everyday.
*
but one step at a time. 2008, i must confess that i have been angry with you. you jam packed the year with lessons, painful lessons…and you forced me to go to the the places i would rather avoid. a bit dramatic yes, but if we are going to get into it i might as well be as honest here. you kinda sucked ass.
*
this is not to say there were not blessings or good bits. i am in a relationship that is equal, loving, and healthy. this is a first. i found out i can teach and move people and help them to be creative. and then there are the children, my sweet, beautiful soul children. too many to count. and the friends that are dear and thoughtful. i am thankful for that.
*
you see though, if i want anything to change, i have to admit what is not working. not being healthy is not working. alright you are not completely to blame, you did not hold a gun to my head and force me to eat that starchy bowl of oily pasta and gummy bears instead of the brown rice and vegetables that are better for my tummy. in a way i have abandoned my physical self, forgot who she was, forgot to take her on walks and runs on the beach and bike rides and yoga classes. i have almost given up the notion that anything can improve, and worked from that place. this is not a place that i care to stay anymore.
*
i realize now that you have tried to tell me many times to stop doing everything backwards. trying to manifest more classes and workshops and helping those who need help and keeping up with the blog and the shop and wanting to expand and make bigger art, write more important words, wanting to make connections and saying yes when i mean no. much of this has ended in broken promises and disappointment. i get it now-if you are not taking care of yourself, none of these things are truly authentic. while many of them added joy and soulfulness to my quality of living, i would like to start giving again when there is enough for me. open up my second chakra, master the art of loving and nurturing myself… instead of waiting for someone to validate me or invite me to some gathering that is going to somehow make everything okay. only i can heal me.
*
francesca wrote (and thank you so much for her, by the way) in one of her books, “sometimes it takes grief to wake someone up. but it must be grief mixed with hope, otherwise the grief will put you to sleep forever.” i cried when i read that. how truly awake i am now, how painfully aware i have become. it is not like when i was on meds and i felt disconnected from the grief and joy….all of us floating on different apathetic clouds. now we are all weaved together in one tangled, complicated, rather fucked up spider web. but at least we are no longer separate. when rebecca showed me her art journal page that read in her innocent, 7 year old handwriting: “i dedikat this to maccabe” my heart exploded into a 100 shades of goodness. the dark moments make moments like that worth it. there cannot be one without the other.
*
and francesca was right, there needs to be hope or the grief will pull you under. there is hope all around me-in the cherub faces of my students and art supplies and good books. hope is what i write on rocks, write in poetry, scribble on post-its while i chat on the phone. it can not be a coincidence that you plopped me here, right in the middle of my own magic cottage surrounded by a white picket fence with baby pink roses that are almost always in bloom. the cottage where a 1920s movie star used to live…a starlet now a gentle spirit protecting all who stay here-this powerful space of land by the sea. hurt animals continue to wander in from nowhere, especially our cottage. (when blue stayed here, he laid by my front door while i was out, even though there was a huge yard for him to play in.) they feel it too. the wind is strong enough that it carries the ocean sounds into our bedroom at night. we fall asleep to crashing waves, a real mermaid cottage. no, this cannot be random. i was summoned here. my body needs to stop rejecting it.
*
so this is it, 2008. no more. i have big plans for 2009. 9 is my favorite number so that must be a good sign. this is the year that i nurture myself and start loving me properly. as grateful as i am for the lessons and the healings, i am ready to reclaim the things i lost. i need to move on. there is beautiful work i want to do, and i must stop giving what i don’t have.
*
please pass the word onto 2009. self love is my mantra this year. after that, i can love the world. or at least make a happy dent in it.
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feel free to borrow this format for your own blog or journal, or write your own note in the comments section.
