I’m allowing myself space to tend to my beginnings. This means that I am trying to be gentle with myself whenever I find myself at a start. For this space in the internet, this means that you can expect posts here from the second week of the month and not the first. This allows me to rest, review the month that’s passed, plan for and get a little better acquainted with the month ahead before I reach out to share with you. I’m proud of myself for extending this grace to myself and giving myself all this room that I know I am deserving of before my body thrusts me into a halt.
My personal mission- to be a soft place for myself. It is both mission and practice. Self as soft place. Self as sanctuary. Self as the place where I am always seen, loved and accepted.
– Arit Okpo
A challenging part of this practice I foresee is the possible friction I will experience in getting back to blogging on that second week. While this is only my first attempt, here we are. Part of this schedule is trusting myself to return and teaching myself that sometimes it’s okay that I won’t show up. I’ve said a couple of times in conversation in the past couple of weeks that I am tired of just wanting. Granted this statement sounds a lot harsher than the tone that precedes it, I am doing more for myself. I am promising myself and the people I love to do and be more. I want more than dreaming for myself and allowing my mind to get in the way of my real being.
In the sizeable number of years I’ve had this blog, my long unplanned hiatus was mostly a cause of self policing. In the period leading up to the hiatus, school had gotten busy and life was increasingly feeling like it was happening to/ at me. In the midst of the overthinking that went into my writing, writing to share especially, carving out time to do this and the mountain of self doubt that made this even more difficult at the time, I decided it was no longer a priority and stopped. The hiatus lasted for much longer than I thought it initially would but once I allowed the self doubt to sit, then it compounded into something much larger that I had to gently and intentionally work through.
My return to this space is not to say that I no longer struggle with this or self policing but that this year I’m allowing myself to do the things riddled with doubt. I’m also maximising on the time before and between when my thoughts aren’t clouded. I am deliberately taking myself a lot less seriously. I am allowing myself to exist outside my head, here and in my intimate spaces with the people I am in relationship with. I’m also allowing there to be space between where I want to be and where I am, recognising that I won’t get there immediately and that’s okay. And on the days when this remembering is difficult, I am hopeful that the systems I am putting in place, make the things I want, things that be and exist.
… It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take a while. It’s normal to take a while. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.
– Ira Glass
Blooming Butterfly 