Happy vernal equinox to all of you reading. This post might be a bit long, but I’m pouring my heart and soul into it, so it should be worth the time, especially for those friends I’ve made from faraway places who have been wondering where I’ve disappeared to. Today marks the first true day of spring, the moment when light and darkness stand in perfect balance right before the days begin to stretch longer and warmer.
This day has long been understood as the beginning of the natural new year. Long ago, rulers and empires reshaped our calendar systems based on the whims of their egos, shifting the new year to a point in the dead of winter that feels disconnected from the natural world. Before modern calendars fixed January as the starting point of the year, civilizations looked to the sky and the seasons to understand time. The zodiac cycle begins here, with the first sign, Aries, a mixture of wailing newborn baby and conquering pioneer, being the herald of a new dawning day and rising alongside the rebirth of the earth itself.
This is a powerful turning point for nature, the cosmos, and all of us, whether we subscribe to the idea of large celestial bodies affecting us via their gravitational pulls or not. We can all feel it even if we’re not looking for it. The air starts smelling different, the ground softens beneath our feet, one particular bird starts squawking right outside our window and waking us up at 4 o’clock every morning, and everything that’s been waiting beneath the surface begins to stir and pop up with bright little green buds.
I, too, am trying to (re)start a little something new here. Hopefully, this time around, it works out. And I think timing it with the vernal equinox, for me at least, adds more meaning and significance.
After a very difficult stretch, I find myself revisiting this wonderful Rune Academy worldbuilding project after what seems like a million years. Too long a time has passed, and it’s still here exactly as I left it, waiting patiently… but the me that’s coming back to it is completely changed. I have sooo much to tell you. What seems like an entire life story to share. So much to get back to and reclaim. SO many changes to make.
I’d like to take this moment to set intentions for the coming year ahead. In a way that’s normally reserved for January 1st, as on the actual day of the 1st I was too sick to make heads or tales of most things. I’d like to now set resolutions that feel aligned with where I actually am and who I’ve become, not where I thought I should be months ago. To turn over a new leaf…
I’m a full proponent of the idea that we need to set goals for not what we’ll get when we reach them, but who’ll we become by the time we do. Especially since I myself feel I’ve grown over the past few years of unprecedented turmoil in not just my life, but the greater world as well. Everything is meant to mold and shape us in the best ways possible. Or at the very least, in the way that’ll force us into the avenues that’ll allow for the greatest soul growth to occur. And boy has that growth been forced upon that soul.
I don’t know about anyone else, but the past few years have been especially hard for me. And not just the years that encompassed the global pandemic, but also the years after. Life has felt like a constant storm of events, one after another, barely giving me room to breathe. One of the new rules for me this year, as part of the turning over a new leaf ritual so to speak, is to be more open and transparent about the situations that I’ve been faced with. As keeping everything hidden to deal with alone has always led to only heartache. And with the wonderful new support system in my life that’s slowly teaching me that it’s okay to need someone to lean on, and it’s okay to ask for help and not try to take everything on myself… I’m taking this new leap of faith. And it might not be a big deal to anyone else, but I’ve always been one to describe myself as an aggressively private person, and it’s a big deal to me to finally let it all out.
There have been the obvious financial hardships that I’m sure every single one of us can relate to. There have been family health problems on multiple levels, the most heartbreaking of which have turned into family tragedy and violent death. This led to multiple mental health struggles amongst everyone who was witness and who dealt with the aftermath, me personally being dealt the hand of PTSD, insomnia, anxiety, and panic disorder to deal with. Most of which, after many years since the event, I can proudly say are very well managed. All thanks to the wonderful people that dragged me in like a beat up stray off the street and nursed me back to health.
That being said, the event in question led to a multitude of situations that allowed for a plethora of people in my life to unfortunately as well as fortunately show their true colors. Especially when faced with delicate decisions that had to be made when similar difficult situations emerged again with different skins. This all led to a breakdown of communications that were already in piss poor condition (I see this only in hindsight, after having been thoroughly exposed to the wonderful opposite). Afterwards came a nerve wracking divorce and ultimatums that forced impossible decisions, the first of which was a 24 hour eviction. Of which I’m eternally grateful to my father and brother for jumping in to help me move literally my entire life (including some insanely massive machinery) to a variety of different storage locations and homes within the span of “you need to be out of here by morning”. I’m also thankful to my job for allowing me the leave of absence and for dealing with my mental state afterwards. My job has been pretty much the only stable thing in my life (up until recently) to ground me since the beginning of the pandemic.
Afterwards came months and years of what can only be described as couch surfing and housing insecurities. I’m eternally grateful to everyone who’s ever allowed me a place to rest my head and store my crap, even if it meant commuting for over 2 to 3 hours to work across state lines (this is regarding multiple people) and even if it mean my stuff getting water damaged to the point of throwing it away (I didn’t need it anyway, and more can always be easily accumulated-the relationships with the people are always more important).
What follows is the time in my life that I can only define by my unwillingness to be myself or put myself first, and live entirely for others, in a sometimes harmful and thoroughly exhausting (to the self) way. I turned entirely away from myself, my inner turmoil and problems, and threw myself into everything that I could to involve myself with others and help with their problems. To give context, both of my parents experienced failing health, my father putting his entirely on hold in order to financially support my mother through chemo, which I’d also occasionally help out with paying for wherever I could alongside with taking her to appointments across multiple state lines. This meant they could not retire in today’s broken healthcare system, as it was draining them financially. This is when my brother asked to open a brick and mortar business with me, which led to me trying to support my little brother and help improve the family situation, hoping to give him and my sister a chance to go to college, which they hopefully will eventually be able to do. But this ended up landing me in triple figure sums of debt and working paycheck to paycheck.
Trying to get everything under control while dealing with extreme mental health struggles (PTSD fueled panic attacks, insomnia, and nightmares) became part of daily life. And then I reached a point where I could no longer afford healthcare. I had to choose between health insurance and car insurance… And without my car, I could no longer get to work so the decision was obvious. I had no access to medication, and began experiencing a complete loss of self. I did not want to be myself anymore or occasionally just be.
But I needed to keep going for my family, making sure that they would have a future one day. I needed to be able to distract myself from myself and my own situation… one where I actively rejected what humanity told me was the golden ticket to what I’m supposed to be doing with myself to fit into societal norms. I surrounded myself with people who were from incredibly varied walks of life to add something meaningful to my life while also attempting to get back what I purposely lost. I was in possibly the worst possible mental state to be dating anybody, but I knew that I needed to be surrounded by people to heal, or I’d slowly go inside spiraling within myself.
I’m grateful for every single one of the people who fluttered in and out of my life during these few years. I dated casually for a short while, to learn as much as I could as quickly as I could in order to seemingly catch up and make up for the years I’d lost being trapped in a failing marriage. This phase didn’t last long as it exhausted me quickly to a point of near total burn out. Especially when considering that I almost vehemently refused to be myself in most interactions. I wasn’t comfortable with myself and rejected who I was as a person, which caused me to wander down avenues and into circles I’d never been anywhere near in my entire life, pretending to be people I’ve never been like.
There were stalkers that rose up amongst the few that I dated in that time period…usually people I made aware I no longer wanted to see them. Some would understand that the dates went nowhere and accepted it as graciously as possible.I’ll always be grateful for them. Some were heartbreaking, as we’d become friends and life simply began unfolding in ways that no longer included them. Some would lash out and send me videos of defiling items I’d accidentally left behind in places I’d visited. Some would make sure I knew they were still coming around by leaving unsavory things for me to find on my car and scaring the shit out of my family and I as well as putting my entire workplace on high alert. Some caused me to delete most of my social media presence or go silent by making new account after new account to message me after being endlessly blocked and never allowing me a moment of peace for months at a time. Most were people I attempted to date, some who I’d literally gone on only one or two dates with. Most gave up after a few weeks or months. Some caused me to change my phone number and couch I slept on multiple times within the span of a few months.
I can say that I’m still grateful for these people, as they’ve taught me invaluable lessons across all of our interactions, no matter how painful. Some of which were as specific as never pretending to be somebody I wasn’t, especially since it was usually someone much more confident than I really was (in efforts to “fake it til I make it” in reinventing myself), as it opened people up to treating me much harsher than I’d ever been treated before because they assumed I was strong enough to take it. Actual filth and verbal abuse I’d never experienced before in my life.
Another harsh lesson was never accepting financial aid under the pretense of good-will, no matter how desperate in the moment and how kind the person offering. You never know what people are really thinking when they want to appear generous in the moment. The story flipped once I met someone that was perfect for me in every possible way and I no longer wanted to date casually. What helped pay rent in one moment of kindness became grounds for hounding and ended with my family and I scrambling to find money only to realize we were spread too thin amongst all the debts to come up with the funds to stop the harassment. That being said, I’m grateful for the wonderful man that I have in my life now that is understanding and occasionally lets me borrow from him to help pay for rent and loan payments as I slowly work on my debts while living paycheck to paycheck. I’ll never stop thanking the universe for how it’s turned my life around by adding him to it ever.
I think the lesson that caught me the most off guard is the lesson about who my real friends are. This is completely not taking into account friends that have tried making money off me by attempting to get me to sign contracts that would get me to pay them royalties for the rest of their lives for services rendered once (specifically renovating some floors). That’s an entirely separate and strange beast that I honestly think back on with absolute absurdity now…
What hit me harder than it should have was this… During the very tragic moment in my life where we had experienced a violent death in the family while I was still living with my ex husband, all of my friends came together to support me through my darkest moments and provided me with so much love I don’t know what to do with myself. When I started to seemingly flourish from the outside, while actually maniacally trying to force positive change by over exerting myself from the inside, they seemed to take a few steps back because they saw that I no longer needed the level of support that I did when I was at my worst. I was, at best, some entertainment with my latest attempts at reinventing myself, and at worst, I was a massive headache for having a life too chaotic to keep up with. When I announced that I was opening a shop with my brother for my family, they wondered whether I’d hit the lottery and asked what I was hiding from them. They didn’t seem to accept the answer that I simply took a massive risk for the hopes of having a worthwhile reward while going into massive amounts of debt. Because it meant that any of them could do it too, only the choice was what separated us, but they chose to see us as separate anyway. Unless I reached out to them, it was suddenly rare that I would get reached out first. I’d be invited to gatherings out of politeness, but then never be given further details and I’d be left with looking at photos of everyone having a good time while never having had the chance to join them in the first place. After expressing these feelings, however, things have gotten better, but due to having these experiences in the first place, I feel I see people differently now anyway.
Some lessons that I learned were very broad and simple, such as just how much stress can I take all at once? Like… am I able to help with setting up, financially supporting, and running a business, while working full-time at my own job that helps fund everything, while constantly stressing about money, while attempting to date and appear normal functioning to greater society, while being slammed with harassment on every social media platform I visit including LinkedIn and my personal emails (and receiving explicit videos in my text messages), while also worrying about falling asleep while driving on my often 2 hour+ commutes into work, while also trying to reconnect with friends (and actually not lose them), while ALSO attempting to not forget about the projects I have that are the true products of my inner passions and dreams.
And I can say all of this only in hindsight, with the peaceful mind of a solid and stable foundation that I’m slowly building up brick by brick with the aforementioned someone perfect for me in every possible way. I can only look back on this now as a terrible nightmare with some fascinating and beautiful moments sprinkled in between.
It was absolutely not all bad. I have a lot to be grateful for experience-wise with what’s happened over the past few years. I’ve made friends and lost friends, but the memories stay with me forever. I’ve gained a variety of new skills such as snowboarding and basic machine repair thanks to the time that I’ve spent with the variety of people I’ve come into contact with. I’ve gotten closer with my little brother and sister through swapping stories of escapades and shenanigans. I love them. And choosing gratitude every single day while working on my mental and physical health has been invaluable.
For the first time in my life since living in my very first apartment all alone in college, I now live in an incredible space with the love of my life that we picked out for ourselves entirely of our own accord. I love our apartment and how comfortable and beautiful it is, and feel inspired every second of every day here as I’ve fully decorated it myself to be the perfect nest for us. I love how the light shines in through every single window at all hours of the day and night and I love watching all of our plants flourishing and changing throughout the seasons. I’m grateful for this home, and I’m grateful for the man I share it with.
He’s taught me a plethora of wonderful lessons on how I should be treated and how to truly love myself. That I am enough just the way that I am, and that if anyone thinks I’m “too much” should go find them someone who’s less. He’s reminded me that I have endless skills and talents and that I should use them to make those dreams I once had to a reality. And every single day he keeps on reminding me. He’s listened to all of my pains and woes and I’ve done the same for him. We’ve supported each other through dark moments and incredibly powerful joyous moments and, through the sheer level of honest and effective communication, we’ve come to know and understand each other better, faster, and more deeply in a shorter period of time than I’ve seen people do in years. He’s my rock, my grounding energy, an incredible role model to me, and genuinely my best friend. I love him.
And alongside him, I’m also grateful for a number of other incredible role-models, who’ve shown me what it’s like to actually exist within a beautifully calm, and peaceful relationship. Namely, an elderly couple who bicker (in a cute way) all the time but with so much love, are at the top of that list. They allowed me to be a guest in their home for a while during my couch-surfing days. Seeing their relationship modeled for me day in and day out, and the slowing down of life I experienced while in their constant presence, especially in the critical moments immediately after leaving my ex when riddled with the worst effects of PTSD, was the difference between me being able to slowly get myself together and start the difficult journey to healing, and completely falling apart. I have genuinely never been more grateful to anybody and the roof they provided over my head, especially considering that early on I used to pace and sob endlessly. They allowed me space to truly release and heal. I love them.
Truth be told, this post was supposed to go in a completely different direction , where I spoke about more of my thoughts on the current state of the world in my opinions on things such as AI and my actual resolutions for this new leaf I’m trying to turn over. But that’s likely going to have to be something for my next post which should be the part two to this. When I start writing, it’s very hard for me to stop, especially once the thoughts all come spilling out onto the page. I guess the part two will come soon. I need to sleep now.