The birds are back!
Letting go of a dream to make room for your life
My friends!
Where I currently live in the Northeast, after a brutal, freezing winter, there has been a miraculous set of days that has brought, drumroll please: sunshine. Temperatures above 50°. No! Coats! Needed! Time has literally rushed forward. The crushed velvet blue of dusk is back. The chirping birds are back.
I know, it’s a false start. I’ve lived here long enough to be familiar. But my friends, we are so close to a new season. So close to spring melting deliciously into summer, leaving us all sticky, golden, and flirtatiously hopeful. A much needed respite.
On what appears to be the last sun-dappled day, I’ve found myself stringing together a few words from the heart to share with you. You see, I had a dream that I’ve been tightly holding onto for so long. A dream that is gently and persistently asking me to die. But when I sat down to capture the death of this dream, I was surprised to find what came to the surface isn’t about my marriage, home, career, or purpose. What’s asking me to let go is the dream of a fearless-feeling girl who doesn’t need help, who is fiercely independent, who does most of this life alone.
Until this very moment, I didn’t know that who I’ve been living as was asking me to release my firm grasp. I hadn’t really considered my strengths of independence and drive could be upholding a familiar role I have been playing. I offer my past self kindness and grace, knowing the role came to me out of survival and longing. They say be careful what you get good at, and friends, I have become so good at not having needs, at being able to figure it out alone, at predicting a future of let downs and not allowing myself to come near that burning flame.
When tasked with answering what do I want, the words that tumble from my body is to let go. The words that spill out from my heart is to share more. The words that dance from my spirit is to be so completely wholly myself that I forget the time before and the previous dream and all the ways I’ve been running and looking over my shoulder and holding my breath.
Is this what the kids call crashing out? Because I think I’m here, in your inbox, on your homepage, tenderly crashing out from the depths of my heart. Surrendering and saying yes. Finally agreeing to let go and make room for life.
By the time you read this, the sunshine will have passed. The weather will fade back to words like mist, wool, and chilled. I will have successfully attended two therapy sessions. By the time you read this, my subconscious brain will do cool funky things I won’t even know the half of while I sleep. I will have begrudgingly ate three salads in my desire to eat the rainbow. I will have inhaled a gorgeous novel. By the time you read this, the moment will be different because life goes on. The wheel turns, things keep spinning, and another day arrives.
I am still the fearless-feeling girl, but I’m on a new dream quest to embody and become the fearless-feeling woman, writer, artist, sister, friend, lover who knows how to ask for help. The new dream is learning to love my wholeass self. And by wholeass, I mean loving fully, tightly, fiercly, the dark shameful parts of me. The guilty bits, the shadows, the dishonest narrator. I want to love the self who has caused harm, pain, gotten it all wrong, made mistakes, and feels uncomfortable. That’s the new dream. That’s where my internal GPS is set. I trust myself to get there and I trust my ancestors, the moon and the sun and the stars, my friends, my family, my studio, my coworkers, and my therapist to help get me there.
Anything out of alignment to this new dream is being thoughtfully, lovingly, respectfully, and achingly laid to rest.
In my practice of sharing needs, I want to ask for your help. I need your help remembering this is water. I need your help creating a better future, one that is rich in friendship, community, and safety. I need your help tapping into the well of joy through laughter, sensuality, play, indulgence, and passion. I need your help with mundane resources in every form imaginable. I need your help remembering that I am me, despite the tornado of change I find myself in. I need your help when it comes to reaching out and checking in. I need your help with asking better questions. I need your help remembering it is possible to start again at any moment.
I need your help with practicing my wholeass love.
Thank you for reading, thank you for holding, thank you for helping me. I quite like this new dream we have found ourselves tucked into. May you find the strength to make it to the next set of minutes. May you find your voice just when you think it won’t be heard. May you turn toward the sun. May you feel the love of others who want to help. May you let go of what is asking you to die. May you grant yourself so much grace with the grief that fills the space of what you were once carrying. I too am here, bewildered, at what the body, heart, and spirit feels like when unencumbered. Let go of what is not yours to hold. Keep looking.
With love & possibility,
Jordan