Oh wow. I don’t really know where to start with this month. It’s been…intense. I’ve been doing a lot of crying in my car, listening to Sufjan Stevens because I like to really SIT in sadness if it’s there. Let the waves of emotion realllllly wash over me. You feel? My friend calls sadness “seductive,” and I couldn’t agree with her more. There’s something romantic about it. Inspiring even?
(friends being ever so comforting to a distressed me at a tea shop)
Another friend of mine informed me that in a butterfly’s life cycle, the caterpillar literally disintegrates in the cocoon in order to transform. June has been my cocoon, and I have disintegrated. I won’t get too into details about it here, I’ll just talk about feelings. And maybe link the playlist I’ve made specifically for these car cries I’ve admitted to. But hey, I have the butterfly stage to look forward to, right? Now that so much in my life has crumbled, I can meet my new self, and ask her how she wants to go about re-building. Maybe the empty space I’m feeling around me allows for deeper breathing. Contemplation.
(Chinatown in San Francisco on film. My friend and I road tripped)
I turned 22 this month. It was a wake up call. Sometimes I still think of myself as 17. Other times in my mind I am ageless, and so confronting the fact that I’m getting older is always a funny feeling for me. I like to spend parts of my birthday alone, just to sit with myself, take stock of my life, what I like about it, what I don’t. What I can do. What I can let go of. Where I’ve been. Where I feel myself going. Quietly congratulating myself for making it this far. But if I’m being honest y'all, it was the day when I realized that I’m not nearly as proud of myself as I want to be. And that I did in fact have the power to change that, however difficult it would be.
So I’ve been making changes. Painful ones. Ones that have been testing my limits. But I’ve got to say, I’m seeing a light at the end of the tunnel here. I’m slowly gaining back some self worth, a sense of power, certainty. I’m showing up for myself instead of begging others to show up for me, and it feels pretty fucking amazing. I think I’m more capable than I realized. I keep throwing myself into the deep end and proving it. I am exhausted and I’ll have to rest soon. But not yet. Not yet. Maybe in a month’s time.
(Tarot reading I did for myself on the summer solstice. I like that I pulled the Sun card)
I’m never prepared for the grief that comes when a phase of my life ends. I don’t think that the wiser parts of myself are wishing anything to be different, but I am grieving heavily for the things about my life that I loved dearly at one point, but had to leave behind. I wish I could preserve memories in amber and wear them around my neck. I want to ensure I remember how beautiful the past was, even though I can’t live in it anymore.
- Ash
Oh also, I have a single coming out in July. Y’all are hearing it here first. Shhh don’t tell.
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