it’s a relief to feel like i’m finally finding my footing and coming back to myself again. i didn’t mean to be gone for as long as i have been, but i reached a limit i couldn’t push past, and so—reluctantly—my only option was to rest.
it’s been a traumatic year, to say the least, and now that i’ve started to find my way in my new program, i can say that i think my move to pcc was truly an inevitability, but the way that it all went down was traumatic. it’s odd that it was only a year ago that things at pacifica were unravelling for me. so much has happened since then that it seems like it’s been at least 3. alas.
spring and summer of my jesus year brought their own agonies in the form of two black swan events. i’m still not sure if pacifica constitutes a third black swan event (if so, then i’m quite concerned for this fall, because that would mean that i’d had one every season of the jesus year. it seems excessive, but… transformation finds a way), so until i find an answer to that within myself, i’ll skip the labels. i found a way through the tsunamis of grief i found myself drowning in. i had a few good weeks, and then in the spring, my lifelong best friend and the other half of my dyad in the force died two weeks before what would have been his 34th birthday. i couldn’t reconcile his death, especially when i was “the sick one.” i had finally stopped crying over school, and then found myself lost at sea again. simultaneously, work shifted dramatically, and not for the better. i tried to do what i always did when i couldn’t find myself: i went back to the things i loved, the things by which i defined myself. i got a paper accepted at a conference, and i was so excited. then, luna died. my grief threw me into the worst neurological flare i’d had in years. in some ways, my brain was in worse condition than when i was in the early days of long covid. i pulled out of my presentation at the last minute because for the first time since i was a child, i couldn’t push myself to keep going. all of my visions of working on my novel and finishing my meta dystopias project and going back to school in the fall recovered from my burn out evaporated. as august arrived and orientation began, i couldn’t follow the zoom calls, and i still couldn’t read. classes began labor day weekend, and work was insane. i’m not sure how i got through the first few modules. but now, approaching the end of the semester, i almost feel like i’m not constantly putting out fires caused by my brain’s inability to keep dates straight. i’m still having trouble reading and focusing, but thankfully, i’m a lot better than i was.
heading into the dark part of the year is always a relief. i shouldn’t be surprised that i have always felt more settled in the dark. i’ve attended what is likely to be my last public event of the year: a stunning conversation between amanda palmer and sophie strand at the rubin museum on life after wellness. i hosted a grief ritual for my eco-emotions class, and may do another before the semester comes to a close. i’m settling into my body again, and it is as much a relief to me as the shortened days are.
don’t misunderstand me: i dislike being cold, and the limited sensation i have in my feet does not do my poor balance any favors, but the ancestors i carry within my genes long for the regenerative and restorative darkness. i can feel their exhales as i breathe my own. winter brings with it a liberation from the pressure to be in bloom. spring and summer are external, performative, social times. fall and winter are a cocoon that i only appreciate as the days begin to grow short and the leaves begin to change and i begin to feel the shift in myself that says that i’m ready for the interiority and the solitude; for the silence from which i trust new ideas will emerge. there are a few changes still on the horizon, but as we head towards winter and the term paper deadlines arrive just before the solstice, i can’t say i’ll be sorry to rest.