A portrait of aliveness
a prayer for moving forward
Good morning. I write to you as jackhammers blast away at the alley below my window, as I am on the third floor and the alleyway where we keep our garbage cans floods every time we get rain. The water department is finally here to do something about it. I wanted to sit down and write about this but that was before they arrived. I’m not going to stop, but I’m sure you can see how this has put a bit of a damper on things.
It’s Friday. I have the day off. I’m drinking my coffee, and it’s cloudy outside but there is plenty of light in here. It is my last morning in my apartment.
A few weeks ago when I re-homed my kitten Luna, my therapist told not to force my feelings. He said, don’t make yourself react or respond the way you think someone needs to. I didn’t know I needed this advice, but it was good to hear and it helped me as tears oozed that whole morning. In the car, in the shelter.
I knew it was the right decision to make, and I’m proud of myself for making it.
Now here I am, faced with another heavy transition — one that is best for me in many ways, one that I am approaching with a full heart that is threatening to spill over. Tears are close at hand. What I trust now after having the aforementioned experience is that I can and will greet them as they come. I will not judge them when they are absent. In time I will grieve how I must… or I won’t.
I’m only moving a few blocks away. I’m not quite ready to leave the city. I’ll stay through the summer and plot my next moves while living among good company.
I’ve lived in this studio for two years, which is the longest period of time I have lived in any one space since leaving home for college 11 years ago. (Ok, hold on. I am just now processing this… woah.)
Mere months before I moved in here, I’d been through a brutal breakup/mental meltdown which resulted in subsequent spirals* about moving out of the city, as I asked myself if there was any place in this whole metro area where I actually belonged. I got involved at the climbing gym, which (I will be honest) I think saved my life. Developing community and meeting sweet, good people kept me optimistic. Kept me honest. Kept me around.
*Sorry about all the alliteration here, I’m not sure what came over me.
Four days before the move, I fractured my ankle walking down the sidewalk after a night of running around on a rooftop. Go figure? This basically ended my climbing career and absolutely crushed me when I heard it would be months before I got back on a wall.
Regardless, I settled into this home. Slowly. I furnished it and decorated it. Slowly. I laid roots here, or succumbed to them. It lived and breathed with me. Taking on the challenge of living alone again was daunting, and there were many times I regretted it. But not anymore.
I brainstormed and started my poetry events from this space — I cultivated and nourished that. I taught myself guitar here. I tested my deep deep love and grief for myself and who I am here. This home was my landing place. My springboard. My castle. Apollo and Luna’s home. A place to host supper club. A place to dance alone and cry alone. A place to laugh. At myself, at my friends, at the cats.
I’ve witnessed great growth and love for myself over these last two years. I’ve rolled through many phases, lived many lives. It has been profoundly beautiful, full to bursting with all its faults. All its beauty.
If there is anything I’ve learned from this journey of home, it is that our next stop might be exactly what we need, without us ever knowing that until it’s happening. Amidst all the struggle and all the strife we still get to look back, memorialize, reminisce, make out the lessons. It’s all useful.
In this home, I have been free. I have also felt stuck, and trapped, and helpless. I have felt terrified and alone. I have felt exaltation and joy. I have felt tremendous love and genuine heartbreak. And when I look at it from this vantage point, it all melts into one big, beautiful, beautiful portrait of what it is to be alive.
It’s much easier to stay where we are, you know? To keep quiet, keep still, keep comfortable. The scariest thing is to change. To give up, to release. To make noise, to move around. But if you knew ahead of time that that movement was what you were meant for? You’d dive headfirst, wouldn’t you?
I am lucky, and so so blessed. Thank you for being here with me.
With all my heart,
A
