not quite out of the woods
I often search the Discover feed on Bear to find new blogs and new writers.
It's so neat to see what everyone is up to, what is currently alight in their heart and, on occasion, what isn't alight at all. The human experience and ways to communicate it is so incredibly varied and interesting. I yearn to devour it all, every post and every blog, as a way of honoring and embracing the messy, contradictory ways we figure out how to be human together.
Seeing so much life through people's words, even if it it's an admittance of not feeling all that great, reminds me that I'm not alone in my very personal, often maddening journey.
~ Currently rebuilding my life ~
Yes, I have a loving husband and 2 kitties, but I am rebuilding my life from the rubble of what surviving my 20s was like. If I'm being honest, it's a full-time job recovering from the tragedies that happened and accepting where I am now. I've been examining the rubbish left behind and pulling out whatever is relevant and/or sentimental into this new life that I'm building.
Occasionally, I find remnants of myself that I forgot existed, that I'm surprised are alive, that I am desperate to resuscitate and restore back to fullness.
Writing and blogging has been parts of my old self I have successfully rescued.
~ Saturn returns wake-up call ~
It's wild to say, but I think my life is just barely beginning. I have tamed and compartmentalized my creative, artsy, spiritual parts in a neat, tucked away box in order to work multiple jobs and make ends meet as I moved out on my own and a state away from any family or friends in my early 20s.
While I had short lived success as a Twitch streamer and a TikTok live tarot reader (the only appropriate times I found to open that neat, tucked away box), I was missing a key ingredient for sustainability: a stable environment and a support system.
From 2016 to 2020, I had moved a total of 8 times.
Without a proper support system and lacking a long-term community to which I belonged to, I often felt like a lone wolf. Always moving, never settling, and always, always, always hungry and planning my next hunt.
In retrospect, writing this makes it sound much respectable and alluring than it actually was.
There were plenty of people and communities that enabled me to survive my 20s, it wasn't that the support was non-existent. In fact, some of those kind, well-intentioned folk helped me tremendously in my journey for independence and freedom from my previous, neglectful and abusive circumstances.
(If you're one of them reading this, thank you. You have my deepest gratitude.)
~ Why healing is important ~
My problem was I had entirely too much difficulty trusting any mothereffer, including not being able to fully trust myself.
How was I supposed to do that when I grew up watching deception and lies as the primary way to communicate, to manipulate as a way to get what you want/need?
This has led to unfortunate circumstances where I have done things I'm not too proud of, that don't align with my values, and yet I was doing the best I could with what I knew at the time. This is code for: if your parents don't heal their trauma, they'll pass it down to you, and if you don't heal, you'll pass it on to others.
Instead of a wise, lone wolf, I felt more like a rabid dog that ran off from the prairie and into the woods, so as not to bother anyone with my inevitable fate.
I felt dysfunctional, broken, and utterly lost.
I wished for someone to cure me from my sickness.
The truth is that I am both the darkness I feared and the light I've been seeking.
"When you know yourself, you are empowered. When you accept yourself, you are invincible." - Tina Lifford
~ Writing to reconnect with myself ~
Somehow, all I want to do is write, to create, to paint the town red as proof of life after surviving my rabid dog phase. I am here to document my discoveries on this new phase of my journey.
My hope is that these words might find you exactly when you need them — offering either a flicker of inspiration or becoming the steady hand that helps you remember your own strength when darkness feels all-consuming.
Even though I'm not quite out of the woods yet (I'm setting a new foundation and rebuilding), I'm here now — creating, connecting, and breathing life back into the parts of self I thought were lost forever.
And for now, that has to be enough.
~ Pika Blog? ~
In other news: I found out about the Pika blog platform and made my first post there.
What will I do with multiple blogs? I have resigned in making sense, but I'll keep writing if it keeps feeling right.
It'll all make sense eventually. Or it never will. And oh, isn't that delightful, the tension right before the climax?
Thanks for being here.
Sincerely,
Nadine ♥