2023 In Review
Hello Hello,
This year is for Costa Rica! Alora mentioned that the barrier is thin there and the portal accessible. Not sure exactly how I feel about that, but I can say it’s drawn me deep. Not only for Envision which will come up again in 2024, but the love for Santa Theresa where I am entrapped before the eyes of God and welcomed home with gentle ease.
I am supremely pleased that my family enjoyed the time there as well. The trip was emotionally and physically exhausting as well as expensive (the parents travel in a different class that I do) but worth it to hold them close in sunsets and transits and in-between. Costa Rica has been an excellent capstone to an important throughline in my year which has been to spend quality time with them and to provide enriching experiences to their lives.
Otherwise, I’ve spent the year on this big journey to master myself. The little voice in my head is constantly badgering me with unnecessary information. It’s hard to sit, even though it’s really joyful to do so. I can get frustrated or distracted and can become aggravated when I revert to those cycles. I want feel a sense of accomplishment through completion, not find myself back at the beginning. Thus the entire journey can feel unrewarding to my lizard brain. However, the in practice of sitting with myself, I have found that I can [sometimes] make better decisions.
I feel fringes of melancholy when I don’t feel growth happening. This fear that I will never be enough, caught in the same predicaments, unable to progress my station. Sisyphus pushed the boulder up just to have it tumble down the other side. While I can imagine how Sisyphus derives happiness from the work, I am also vulnerable to the bitter lows.
I can see a version of myself standing on a mountain top, seeing the boulder fall down the same rut, kicking the air in disgust, saying fuck this, and taking the express elevator down or the long winding stairs of solitude or whatever else.
I think there is something I need to learn about accepting where I am. Not to be so harsh on myself. To level set expectations. To trust in God or Faith or the Process or the Journey. But I’m also kind of a fuck-that-watch-me-do-it-myself person by nature. Something in-between or something both together is probably where I want to end up.
Recessing is part of all journeys, mine included, and I shouldn’t berate myself for mistakes. The path is never straightforward. I remind myself to practice gratitude for learning lessons. But I have high expectations for myself and can feel disappointment, shame, embarrassment for stumbling over the same blocks that I ought to be aware of by now.
This is kind of as real as I want to get. I haven’t been good at feeling desirable or feeling desire itself, still rebounding from a difficult progress of understanding my own trauma and how that’s affected people around me. I’ve taken a big L with a person admire, and smaller Ls with other people I am attracted to. I’ve recognized that I’ve made serious unforced errors that have negatively affected others. I’ve also made unforced-less-than-serious errors, along with errors of inaction. Parsing through when and where I should make different decisions is nuanced, difficult, uneven, and inevitable.
Mom really likes pointing out my difficulties with women as a reflection of fundamental flaws in my character. While I understand how she cares for me, is looking out for me, and wants me to be happy with a good partner, what comes out of her mouth is pretty harsh. I don’t like it. Finding the grains of truth out of the loads of criticism is hard enough, applying them successfully to the real-world situations with correct timing and intention is fucked.
Apparently, being yourself isn’t enough. A process I already have difficulty with and have spent lots of effort to understand. No, there is some sense of roleplay that is required, that I haven’t quite figured out, to entice and flatter while remaining aloof to foster a sense of desire, respect, fear, or something else.
All of which to point back to the above paragraphs about finding gratitude and acceptance in where I exist presently, controlling what I can impact, and playing the game with a sense of lightheartedness, instead of getting bogged by all the negative talk that sounds like my Mom and sounds like my Mom in my head.
Also in a little celebration, I have been held very kindly in divine feminine energy this year in many forms by many people. I think that speaks to me growth in the area, so I’ll take that to heart and build on it. Maybe it is simply a matter of patience.
In other reflections, I’m still working on concentration. It was a theme from the resolutions last year, and it continues to be an area of growth. Phone usage is difficult. Both how often and how long I’m scrolling. Even when it comes down to a reasonable level, tripping up can lead to long bouts of inattentive laziness.
Repair will continue to be a theme. As I’ve found during 2023, all things get worn, all things can break. Little nuisances can become massive undertakings. The need for repair can force their prioritization above the regularly scheduled parts of work. This can refer equally to the vaporous repairs of emotional states and interpersonal relationships as the physical, like the catch on my closet blinds. But I find joy in completion of a repair that is desperately needed.
I’ve made lots of art. I’m finding my third spaces in Resistor and Brooklyn Poets to be inspirational and motivating. I want to integrate creation, as it has become one of my most fulfilling areas of my life. From street graffiti to trinkets to poems to clothing to painting, it satisfies a craving in my soul to make stuff. Some of the early projects are frames, a hood, more street art, a tarot box, a jewelry box, earrings, and learning the CNC/Shop bot.
On top of that, I want to learn to ice skate and surf better. Surf, salsa, Spanish are just a few of the skills I’d like to acquire in the coming year.
The biggest challenge is getting published. I’m two years behind my original commitment to get my book in hardcover. The manuscript has gotten better in that time, and I’ve learned about the industry and its nuances. But this year I am taking more actionable steps with submitting poetry in at least 3 cycles of top 6 of 12 and at least 5 publications. If I don’t have my name somewhere by the end of the year, I’ve truly failed a goal I’ve set. Another Moth Reading as well. Just to improve. Another Professor Sue class. And all to come back to the book. It’s coming, I swear.
I’m consciously stepping back from triathlons, though there might be space for a marathon or other competitions to keep my baseline high. The goal is to run a full IM something around 36, spread out like 2 years of unwinding, 1 year for a half, 1 year for a marathon, and then full. It’s a wonderful experience to accomplish something so time consuming. I felt a lot of satisfaction eating alone in the rental, the sun evaporating the rain that accompanied the Half IM race. That meatball. But I don’t want to spend so much time training to not push PRs, and I’d like to use the time for other activities in the next two years. Then I can return to this, once again raising my physical capabilities. I cannot expect that I will fall off so hard in two years that it is any harder than it was getting to this year and last year.
Work has been demanding, especial as I strive to effectively use my extra time for myself. It requires optimizing, staying on top of, my practices. Every Second Counts, right cousin? Honestly the day job has been hell. I am feeling a lot of dis-ease with my job. It continues to be the hardest part of my practice, to show up with equal effort and attitude as I try to put into myself. I am hopeful for good changes in 2024.
Mentorship and Spirit Guide are themes that have come up this year and I will engage in them more actively as I aim to give back to my circles and be a great help in other stories. I’d like to plan time in the New Moon and Equinox periods to sit with friends with medicine. Maximum humility, but I have been asked more than once by a wide collection of people and I’d like to increase my own understanding of the Truth with more perspectives.
This time is your own. Every passing day, month, year from this exact point aggregates personal responsibility to where your life ends up. What habits, practices, explorations will you commit to? What is your aim for this year, five years, more? Are you going to passively accept what the world puts on your perimeters or will you work to till lands that are suited for your endeavors?
It is not easy to maintain something between discipline and mastery of self over long periods of time.
I’m blessed to have many factors that make it easier for me to do so.
I look forward to continuing that progress in 2024.
So let’s make some aspirations. Themes as it were.
I’d like the wrap up Repair, Create, Concentrate, and Complete under Warrior, where I continue my high level of achievement with even more attention. This will continue under Phi’s tutelage, and culminate in Envision 2024, thus completing the first quarter of the year.
The second quarter is only focused on publishing. Poetry and Sue’s course. Additional challenge for Spring Equinox guidance.
I will return to thoughts on or around my Birthday to refocus the remainder of the year.
Cheers everyone. Thanks for reading! Have an incredible year!