Twenty Things

a twenty nine

another new year.

it’s a strange predicament, this life of ours. we grow older and hopefully wiser with each passing year, another whole new moment to engineer something different; a new or improved version of ourselves.

these past few months i’ve been focusing less on trying to manifest my ~dream life~ and instead have been patiently trying to bring myself joy, a skill I’ve been adept at since my teens. of course, a state of joy is limited, we can’t always be happy or even neutral. the shocking reality of life is that there is a continuous and constant motion of an up and down and up and down, so it’s really up to us to decide how to float and tend to ourselves in all the moments. how can we learn to not abandon ourselves even when it’s really hard?

i’ve been thinking recently a lot about the death of Tyre Nichols, which affected me a lot. it’s weird to think of joy against such brutal force, there’s no joy in the continued reality of Black death and it’s confronting as a non-Black person to remember & remember each time how violence and oppression can exist in all of us. it’s depressing to find that so many Black, brown and Indigenous folks have been taught to turn from ourselves and thus each other. that even at the sight of freedom or truth we feel attacked instead of using that feeling to propel us closer to our own truths. we have bought into the system at hand, and we are roped into all its barbarity and ugliness.

but whenever i see someone living fully i feel more allowance to be totally myself. it’s one of the most exhilarating things to witness, someone’s embodiment. so today i’m dedicating this Twenty Things to the act of getting closer to yourself, and being inspired by life and those lives around you.

may you be safe, may you be soft. may you find more ways to unlearn the violence in your bones. may you turn towards love and may you find it in yourself.

i am learning each day that when i understand myself deeper i am able to show up harder for myself and those around me. so it’s imperative that i laugh, that i slow down and take it all in. remembering my own life and what has brought me here today is what brings me joy.

love fa