Making a Movement: The Free Fall

Things turned during these past two weeks…. for the better.

The overwhelming fear about money is dissipating due to signing some perfectly-timed projects for really great organizations. I’ve eased off of the enormous pressure I was putting on myself to figure it all out right now. I even stumbled into a new cycling class I love, giving me some long-awaited physical release.

Yet, I cannot shake this constant sense of uneasiness. I have occasional breakthrough moments when my circumstances are so good that joy will not be denied, but I’m discovering that even in the best of circumstances, I still seem to live in this low-grade panic almost constantly.

Is this normal? (I realize you can’t answer, but I’m hoping you’re shaking your head yes)

This uneasiness… it’s like breathing to me. It doesn’t feel hard or strange or even like something I want to change. It just is. Like my breath.

And if I weren’t committed to this exercise of daily writing, I don’t think I ever would have recognized it. It’s kind of like the white noise machine my wife and I have by our bed. It sounds like white noise… until one of us mentions that we can faintly hear some other sort of ringing in the white noise and then out of nowhere, we can both hear the ringing.

And you can’t un-hear the ringing once you’ve heard it, so you’ve got to shut the damn thing off and start over.

And that’s where this week’s entries have taken me.

I need to find a way to unplug the machine and start over because I can’t un-hear the ringing.

I can’t un-know that this constant sense of dread is standing in direct opposition to my experience of joy.

I can’t un-see how much of my life I’m missing because I’m still afraid of my life.

But I want joy. I want to lean all the way into it. I want to know that when the bottom falls out (as bottoms often do) that the fall will not break me.

Instead, I want to know that my fall will be broken.

And the only way to know that is to risk the fall in the first place. So, that’s where you’ll find me. Trying to find joy one free fall at a time.

Day 15

It doesn’t matter how many times I put my work out into the world, every single time is scary. There is always a second before I push publish when I think “no one will care.” And then like clockwork, I reply, “I care. That’s enough.”

Day 16

Let it be known… 

Making shit is hard. And incredible. And hard again. 

Here are the specifics for today:

I have a bad ass audio track to use as a promo piece for Season 3 of the podcast, so I decided to use my amateur iMovie skills to add some visual components to create a short promo video.

This video will be 1:11 in length. I am currently entering my 4th hour of production. 4 hours.

I had the video exactly the way I wanted it, exported it to my computer, uploaded it to YouTube, only to discover some of the formatting I put into the original file didn’t make it to the exported reel. And in this case, the “formatting” was cropping out a naked woman’s ass (I have no problem with naked asses, but social media gets a little irritated about naked asses).

So, I’ve got a naked ass shot in my fully uploaded movie.

Which means….

Back to production. Fix the naked ass. And do the whole damn thing again.

This is the work of being a maker. Trial and error. Patience with the process. Working on Sundays. It’s all a thing and I would be doing the world a disservice if I didn’t say it.

So, now you know. I still think you should make things. But I also think you should be prepared for the process.

Day 17

Still recovering from 37.4 million hours spent on iMovie

Day 18

Took my girl on a college visit and she fell in love with the place. And so did I, honestly. 

But it was another experience in fear. To realize that she is going to call a new place home for the first time in her life… UGH. Just like a weight on my heart. And at the same time, I am SO proud of her. So, the only way through fear is forward. So forward we shall go.

Day 19

Emotional hangover day. It’s weird. I haven’t had a drink in over 17 months, but feelings can sit in my body the way booze used to. So, I’m sitting with them today. Still working, but not flowing at all. Which is okay for today. Tomorrow will be different.

Day 20

Met with my writer’s group this morning and I said something I hadn’t realized before. 

I will often say I love the experience of having written something, but I hate the process of writing. It’s brutal. It exhausts me. It’s like running a marathon and I don’t run. 

But then today I also said something that opened my eyes to why it feels that way. I said, “I am so tired of turning my pain into a life a lesson.”

And I wonder if I might like writing more if it was fun instead of a trek through the tragedies of my life. 

I’m not sure what I’m going to do about that - if anything. I suspect there will always be some element of my work that requires me to turn the lens that way, but maybe I could find some space to write that didn’t feel like torture. Grateful for a group of people who hold space for those kinds of realizations for me.

Day 21

I wish there were a way for parents to be able to sincerely share the things they walk through with their children without fear of judgement. I suspect we’re all living through the same things, but no one feels free to really talk about the dangerous and destructive shit kids do.

Today was a hard day being a mom. 

Tomorrow doesn’t look much easier.

And I feel like we should find better ways to figure all of that out together.

Day 22

My birthday. Alannah’s birthday. The Project’s birthday.

Making something out of nothing changes the world. Every single time.

Day 23

Sacred Saturday

Day 24

“This is the thing to get to the thing.”

Day 25

I started a large contract today that will definitely consume the bulk of my time and it’s a strange feeling. I’ve been on my own for so long - even in contract work - and to be loosely affiliated with a system to which I am answerable is just surreal.

I imagine it will have lots to teach me. And I hope to add some value to it.

But the thing I want to hold on to is the wisdom from the weekend.

Sometimes when you’ve got a goal, you need to find a thing before the thing. The thing to get you to the thing.

That’s where I’m living right now. In the thing before the thing. Exactly where I’m supposed to be.

Day 26

I wore my hair down two days in a row.

Might not be a thing to you, but what it means to me is that the expectations on my time are shifting. When able to choose, I will forever choose leggings, a baggy shirt, a long sweater and a messy bun as my uniform of choice.

But for the second day in a row, I put on dress pants, a real bra, and wore my hair long around my shoulders.

That means I’m people-ing.

Two days in a row.

And while yesterday felt like a flood during which I had to continually calm myself, today felt… different. Hopeful. Slightly more settled.

I’ll probably always long for my messy bun and baggy sweaters, but if I’ve got to get dressed, this is the kind of work that’s worth getting dressed for.

Day 27

I pulled a card yesterday. The inverted 10 of Earth (I’ll give any of my old Catholic friends a chance to adjust here… yes, I’m a lesbian AND I pull tarot cards. Let the intercessory prayers commence)

At any rate, the inverted 10 of Earth basically points to the idea that everything is coming together EXACTLY as I’d hoped… but I’m still anxious about something. The card suggests looking inside to find the source of my discomfort.

And say what you will about tarot… but that is an eerily accurate card if there ever was one.

I’ve been “turning inside” for weeks now to get under my enormous lack of faith. Like ENORMOUS. But there was something powerful about realizing that my attachment to controlling outcomes also makes it IMPOSSIBLE for me to experience joy during times that are, in fact, joyful.

So, I’m reminding myself to release this incessant plague of thinking the bottom is going to fall out any second. Instead, I’ve started to visualize myself standing on a trap door, the bottom opening and my body falling into clouds that catch my weight. Because if we’re looking at the evidence, then it’s clear that the bottom does, indeed, fall out, but that I’

Day 28

Three times more work than there are hours in a day.

And REALLY confronted with the constant sense of urgency I have about EVERYTHING even in the absence of there being something urgent to respond to. I think they call this hypervigilance. 

It’s bullshit.

I’m so tired of always being on guard.