unforeseen, unforsaken is a free weekly newsletter for the unexpected, the uninvited, and that which you cannot let go of.
It was really difficult to finish and publish this. I feel like a whining baby but I told myself that I wouldn’t put off sending anything even if I think it’s shit, for accountability purposes. you understand.
I am breathing, and so are you. We are alive, and we ought to fucking act like it. I don’t want to drown.
I don’t want to be so distracted anymore.
It’s bad enough that every day feels like it lasts ten minutes, and I wish I had more moments to sleep, but this feeling is compounded by social media, my phone, smoking pot, watching tv… and suddenly the week is over, I have no clean underwear left, I was too distracted at work, and I averaged one meal a day. they say time flies right? Well so does my fucking attention span, and my days and my laundry and on and on. And so too do our lives — so how do we keep from drowning in the sea? Of memories, of burdens, of trauma and love and friends we can’t possibly keep up with? We are (barely) floating in a never-ending sea of never-ending content forced into our brains and it never. fucking. stops. The super secret (not so secret) worst part about it is that you are terrified at the idea of letting it all go, erasing yourself from it, because then you have to face your life. Am I wrong?
Today is the first day of a new week and the first day of a new month and I am planning. I am planning to focus, and to do my work diligently and enthusiastically because I am so tremendously fortunate to have the job I do and make the money I do because not everyone can work at what they love this much and make an income while doing it.
In June, I gave up socials for most of the month. I took up learning German. Today is my 52nd day practicing and I couldn’t be more proud of myself. I am loving the language and the challenge of learning it and the reminder it brings me that I have a “language brain” and the support I get from my partner as they practice alongside me. We are planning to visit Germany next year. Since I re-entered socials in July I have practiced my German less.
In July I stopped smoking pot. Out of 31 days I probably smoked on 4 of them. (I also dosed down on my meds that I’ve been taking for about a year now, but more on that another time.) This month I am going to work at combining the last two months of efforts to breathe more life into my life. I want to work harder to tune out the noise.
I wish to subtract energy from my habits that only serve as modes of useless consumption, and blow more air and love into art and music. I hope to breathe into the pain I feel as my moods swing and shout and scream, and as my anger burns and rages in my chest, and to breathe out slowly, giving myself grace and understanding that everything can change. That I can heal the patterns of the past. This is terrifying and vulnerable, but July felt better and clearer. I long for consistent clarity.
My ultimate wish is to embrace the evolution of my own artistic practice more and more every day.
I think I meet myself a little more each day. Today, on the first of August, I face yet another version of me. I see potential here, on some days more than others. And looking at her, staring at her in the mirror, I sometimes feel bad about her and what clothes look like on her, but more often than not, I feel good about her.
She is learning guitar and getting on a bike again for the first time in over 5 years, she has an urge to write and write and never stop and she wants to read for an entire day and she has a fierce, bleeding desire to sleep for four or five or six hours, straight through the day, in the middle of the week, or to do absolutely nothing on a Sunday. She wants to quench her insatiable sex drive or do absolutely nothing but stare into her partner’s eyes and eat pastries and drink coffee all day. Some of these desires live in daydreams, but most of them are reality when I make them so, and all of this is integral to who I am becoming today. This month. This year.
Picking up a guitar loaned to me by a friend who wants me to foster this urge I have to make music takes my breath away. Despite many tried and failed attempts over the years, I have never learned to play. Now I feel confident that I will make something out of the music I feel growing here in my chest. When I begin to practice my chords late at night, I no longer feel distracted. I am no longer sinking, or struggling to float.
What pulls you out of the muck? What breaks your distraction? What keeps you afloat in the middle of the sea? Respond to this. Leave me a comment. Email me. I want to know. I want to try it.
Here is an example of something that pulled me out. Here is what made me sob and sob and sob and see. Here is what popped me out of a hole I was hiding in.
Before I go, I have to say that I am overcome with a depth of feeling when people decide to follow along here, to express their gladness to receive my newsletter, to check in, to love me and to read my words whether I’m putting them up on your feed or injecting them straight into your inbox. Thank you. I’m beginning to dream of a newsletter that shows up a few days a week instead of once. Maybe this is my new mode of communication. It sure beats the alternative, and it feels so much better.
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