This is my first time writing something in 2021. There’s just so much to say, so much to feel, so much to reminiscence and hope for. I’m learning and reading and taking in others’ words, and I only want to continue. To bloom and prosper and learn and cherish and to keep aspiring. I have a stack of books scattered in my my bedroom that I have devoured or am excited to devour. There’s no sign of alcohol in my home and I intend to keep it that way at least for a while. Habits and ways I want to let go of, and/or embody. Like using meditation in my daily life. Like social media – that’s a relationship I’m working with. I’m trying to let go of its grips… it’s been a problem for many years, but I also want to take use of the connection and network it does hold. Hobbies and expression and less fear. Regrets I will not sweep under the rug despite how much I might want to sometimes, but instead face and digest, and… parts of my identity and parts of me that I need to train and mold into something else or hold in my hands and love. My white privilege SUPREMACY (edited and added in jan. 6 2021… white supremacy is violent to say the least and this bullshit going on as I write in Capitol Hill by literal white supremacist terrorists is exactly why we need to abolish and destroy the inflated power and violence we hold in this country, just because I am angry at them and would never do the same doesn’t mean I am not complicit and guilty of violence and oppression and need to put in the effort every day to stop this and to support Black and marginalized people ffs) and other privileges, and the wretched bias or habits that I am working on, or have yet to recognize, or am grappling with. I am far from perfect, far from good. So much of what I was taught was not good. So much of it was. I hold vices that swing pendulums sometimes, I don’t know.

There is such duality in this life and in us that it’s difficult to explain let alone understand, in what it means to be human and in all this multidimensionality. I am learning about… love. (“All About Love” by Bell Hooks was a beautiful read and I will continue to reread and reread.) I’m still learning about it, always will be. Lots of us are, I’m realizing. Learning what love truly means. How to accept it, how to give it. This year in quarantine taught me so much, and was a time of a great revolution in history for the Black Lives Matter movement. Looking in the mirror. Coming together to remove a bigot from office. Having difficult conversations. Finding community. Mourning. Celebrating. Learning about the layers of truth and who’s telling it. About this fleeting life and what I want from it and what I want to give it. Sharing, sacrifice, boundaries. I don’t know, sometimes I write about everything and nothing all at once, because I don’t really know how to put all this into words… despite my niche of putting them together like spontaneous music, lol.

I feel intense gratitude, I feel conflict, I feel a lot at the same time. I know nothing will ever be okay and living is simply how we deal with it, how we manage to find joy and live in a world that is never fully okay but to also not ignore it, to find our okayness and rollercoasters of emotions, memories, stories and pushing for change and love within it all. I’m sitting here and thinking about the intense mix of individuals and lives and realities here and in history, and where to go from here. I want to keep embracing my life every single day with the light and how far I’ve come amidst the downs or the dark things. I’m here and I’m amazed at the future being here, and I’m grateful for you and souls being here whether they reside in the past and in our hearts, or whether you are alive and breathing. I want to keep grasping and learning and discovering this life with all that’s brimming and inhaling, exhaling among us… This way of life I want to keep and embody is not just for me and myself – yes it’s mostly that I admit – but also for this world and its rotation and all it holds, too. You know?

I’m in the best place I have ever been but it’s only the beginning; the awakening. I’m working on it. I’m figuring it out. I wish everyone prosperity, joy, growth, stillness, love, I really do. I never know how to end these things and always write a tad bit too much, haha, but no shame in that. Here’s to the new year. Here’s to life and to figuring it out, this ongoing evolution, both together and apart.