I don’t want to do this alone
Last weekend, I called my sister. We live in different states and text every day. But as I listened to her tell me a story, I realized I hadn’t heard her voice in ages.
Which is ridiculous. To even attempt to say “I’ve been busy” would be a ginormous lie. My Sunday morning shame-time screen time report is my weekly reminder.
When I got sick ~10 years ago, I used the internet as a substitution for the lack of human connection that comes when you’re stuck in bed for days on end. Now, I feel good but work from home and live alone 50% of the time. Plus I was a social media manager for a few years, and to be honest it fueled an addiction (more on that later).
So I took a 10-day social media break. There’s nothing more humiliating than watching yourself pick up your phone forty-bagillion times to check a now deleted app.
I’ll write more about my observations soon. Until then, please know this: I was using social media as a faux sense of connection. I wanted it to see me, and I wanted to see myself in it. But it often left me feeling lonely. Which is also dumb, because I’m lucky enough to know great people IRL and online. People who, like me, might be looking for true connection, too.
It got me thinking about this blog. And about my real goal in creating it. Yes, it’s something that appeases my exhibitionist nature. It’s an outlet for my creative self-expression. But when I sink into my heart, I know this is bigger than me. I would love this space to bring together like-minded people.
I recently came out of a deep meditation and wrote the following message. I hope it serves as a rallying call for anyone who might feel like I do.
Here goes:
Middle age is not to be traversed alone. We’re all in this middle aged lady shit together. So let’s do this together. Let’s co-create something beautiful. Let’s focus on what’s real and good and authentic and lovely. Let’s drive our attention toward healing the things we thought were unworthy because we didn’t fit into the outside world. And let’s lift each other up while doing it.
Let’s do this as women, not to shun men but to lift up women. And to give men the space to embrace their own creativity and love and all the ways the damn patriarchy fucked them over, too. This isn’t an anti-man space. Not at all. This is a space that shines for femininity and masculinity and recognizes the interplay of energies that exist in us all.
Let’s stop feeding the machine with our self doubt and self pity and victimhood. Have we been hurt? Hell yes we’ve been hurt. Has it destroyed us? Hell no. They want us to stay small, so we hate ourselves enough to buy the shit their advertisements say will make us happy. After many years of doing a LOT of hard, internal work, this I know: our happiness is within. Our joy comes from our connectedness, from our creativity, from our inner knowing that we are worthy of love in all the ways it presents itself. Together we can create a force field of goodness to align and focus us on our greatest potential. Our perfect health. Our perfect wealth. Our perfect love and our perfect self expression.
Ladies, we got this shit. For 2000+ years, greedy ass in-humane humans have been in power. No more. Their unjust laws can’t stop us from growing from within, from harnessing the power of the feminine energy in all of us to create, to grow, to nurture, to align, and to thrive wherever we are planted.
Let us play. Let us express ourselves in the ways that bring us joy. Let us know, truly know, all that’s ours by divine right. Let us teach each other and learn from each other and grow from our shared experiences. Let us understand that together our power is multiplied. We are not in competition. We are different. We are beautiful, in our own ways and in our own power. We can rely on each other.
In life, there exists a middle way. A way that’s guided by heartache and pain and peace and joy. They want us to believe we are separate. That we’re opposite in every way and unable to find compromise and common good.
But they made a mistake. They underestimated the power of middle age. They poked the bear one too many times. And while younger versions of ourselves may have lashed out in anger or recoiled in fear, we middle agers know how to keep going. We have learned through trial and tribulation to shake off the shit and begin anew. We carry with us the wisdom of our elders--words that once felt like nonsense now resonate more deeply with every passing day.
So, what’s next? I’ve spent the last two months grieving, so I’m going to write about loss and grief this week. Over on the socials, I’m planning to chat with my friend Travis from high school about how I peed my pants in 1st grade and about grief from a masculine point of view. I’m going to share a brilliant blog about weed and crying in yoga, written by my friend Sarah and maybe I’ll convince her to chat with me, too. I’ll be sharing poetry by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer and also provide some tips about mindfulness and managing your energy when experiencing grief.
After that? Truly, you tell me! How can we make this a community? What would you like to see? What would you like to share? What wisdom of middle age might you contribute?
If what I write resonates—GREAT! Would love for you to read/like/comment/share. If what I write doesn’t resonate—GREAT. Use your free will and leave this space. If you really like what you’re reading, support my work by buying me a cup of coffee.
