Maybe it's because my birthday just passed. It's also quite possible that Saturn's conjunction with my natal Sun/Uranus is adding its own flavor to this feeling. Something about this past year in particular has left me feeling emotional in ways that haven't been this strong in years. Today marks my one year anniversary of moving back to SF. In some moments it feels like nearly this entire year has been a waste of time. Yet when I step back, I'm realizing that I'm defining time as something being based in work. Saturn you sneaky bastard. Now, if I instead look at time as movement based, I realize I'm at the same physical address and it still feels to be somewhat wasted. In this year I've finally realized how important it is to note and adjust how we speak to and about ourselves. How we cast ourselves into the stories of our lives is solely dependent upon us. This year has been spent exactly how it needed to be spent.
During the meltdown I had on my birthday I told my best friend that I felt like my life was and has been on pause. Like I wasn't actually living. He asked what I thought it meant to be living. The answer that flew out of my mouth was producing, experiencing and exploring. While I still find that to be a truth for me, I'm realizing I'm not giving myself enough credit.
- One year ago I moved back to SF and into my parents home. After years of freedom with no one asking where or who or why or when or how I was doing whatever I was doing, I stepped back into a realm where nearly everything I do and don't do is judged and spoken on passive aggressively. Being back here has helped to better understand what my own nature is versus how I was nurtured and then reflect on the ways that my projections of both ways of being have helped or hurt me in how I engage with my world. Sometimes you have to revisit the past in order to move forward.
- While yes I'm still at the same address, I have succeeded in transforming my own space from virtually nothing to something. I slept on a couch for about 3 months and then in my Mom's office for 3 months. It took 6 months to rearrange and create space outside of what is now my room. It couldn't become my space while filled someone else's stuff. And even once it become my nearly bare space, it wasn't arranged properly for yet another few months. I was told that I made the mistake of getting comfortable and that's why I was still here in SF one year later. While that may be true, if I learned anything in the past 4 years, it's how important my environment is to me. Not only do I need alone time, I need alone space where I control stimulation or lack there of and float with my thoughts and feelings and decompress. I need the art and colors and flowers and scents and tools around me to be accessible so I might revitalize my being when I need to. After putting such minimal effort into my first apartment in Brooklyn, every one thereafter I've needed to shape and color my domain to my own standards no matter how temporary it ends up being.
- I worked at a vet hospital and I learned that it's not for me. Becoming a vet and owning an animal hostel and hospital was one of my first dreams. I remember sitting with a friend at summer camp and drawing out blueprints for the building while we planned to open this business together 15 years in the future. I now love animals just as much as I did at that age and always wondered if I would have become a doctor (of animals or humans) had I not gotten sick. Well it's now a dream that I can lay to rest and any subconscious energy I was investing in it for all these years can now be focused on manifesting a different dream.
- I was hired as a photographer for the first time in 6 years! I was so nervous because it's something that's been fun and solely for me. If I get shots I'm happy with, fantastic and if I don't, it doesn't matter. I've been welcoming newness into my life and this was part of that. So I took the leap and got paid to photograph nature, something I love and do often anyhow.
-I've gone through spurts of drawing. A quote that resonated so incredibly much that I heard or read this year is that life imitates art far more than art imitates life. The responsibility of creating that which you wish to see in the world just drips all over my mind a potency not often paralleled. And so I've made it a point to sit down and just draw. People or shapes or symbols, or colors or abstract messes. Allowing whatever comes out to come out.
- I not only took classes (which is an accomplishment in and of itself for me), but I finally took reiki classes. In NY I had financial excuses and then I had energy and time excuses. Despite my lack of consistent cash flow, I still did it this time. It was time to invest in myself and learn something I wanted to for awhile now.
- I traveled. I became more intimate with LA and Phoenix. I didn't travel far but I traveled quite often, shifting through worlds, shaking up energy patterns and healing myself all the while. There's something to be said for what happens to your soul while driving on an open road in the middle of nowhere during a sunrise.
- I planted seeds. I tended them with water and love and affection and watched them all grow and bloom and die.
- I met 2 local awesome human beings to create and work with.
- I finally made jewelry and I'd like to make more.
- I became more comfortable in my own skin and soul and my sense of self feels stronger.
- I was hired to freelance for a new makeup line.
- My communication with all my family members has improved.
- I quit smoking cigarettes for the longest consecutive period in 6 years.
- I started exercising again for the first time in 4 years. Running and walking the beach and light yoga.
- I created sleep rituals for myself listening to binaural beats and isochronic tones. I began to journey with drums rather than lights.
- I've spent time in questionable environments which made me reevaluate my stereotypes and values.
- My bond with my guides has grown infinitely tighter and I'm experiencing love in ways I never have before.
So yes I've been floating in this in between space for the past year or so. And I haven't produced as much work as I would have hoped to in a year. But when I think about all the different habits and ways of existing and living and thinking and feeling that have changed in the past year, I'm happy. I did work. I just spent a ton of time working on myself for myself rather than for someone else. I'm excited to see what the future holds.
