When I woke up this morning, turning back the clock felt needed and wanted. Not only because the tasks of the week, both joyful and arduous, have piled up so unexpectedly high, but also because I’ve experienced some massive dreams come true as of late that I’d love to relish twice or even a third time. I readily pursue a life of hedonism.
This past Saturday I turned 29. Which hasn’t carried much significance except that I am no longer 28. I had premonitions about 28—many of which came true in entirely different forms than I ever could’ve imagined; lifelong dreams in peculiar packages. I dreamed of finding the love of my life and it turns out she’s me. I dreamed of finding my home in the world and I now feel so at home in my body it’s almost sinful. I dreamed of having a giant birthday dinner party with dear friends in nature at a long table, likely a balm for painful childhood experiences of being uninvited to large parties. And last night I celebrated my birthday, as well as the birthdays of a few fellow friends and Libras, with a group of humans and dogs I cherish so dearly. It was that kind of magical gathering that feels so good it makes one re-examine what exactly it is we’re all feeding ourselves during the hours of the rest of our lives. Is it nourishing? Is it life-giving?
More than anything, this morning I mostly wanted to turn back the clock so I could have a bit more time to suss out just exactly what I want to write to you. I’ve experienced so many big, emotional, transformational days, hours, and minutes lately that I haven’t had much time to process just what—if anything—they mean to me, my life, or to you and this newsletter. And I hate being premature. But sometimes things aren’t ripe yet and that’s just the truth.
In a few weeks we do turn back the clocks and move further into the holiday season, and I’m wanting to go back and relive its beginning minus the unruly LA heat. This time of year always moves quickly with its gatherings and events—many of which most of us couldn’t enjoy the past few years. And yet, my insides are begging me to slow down. To savor.
I wrote the poem I have included in this letter on the morning of my 29th birthday. Against my own highfalutin wish to be a little less premature with my art, I’ve decided to share it anyway despite it being less than a week old. I haven’t made sense of exactly what the poem means, although I feel it deep in my soul.
It probably has something to do with how we often want to turn back the clock on our lives because of some aspect of ourselves we wish we could change or fix or erase entirely. As if lacking that one quality or phase would’ve made us better, more untouched by disappointment and the quiet, swishing dis-ease that lingers alongside it.
Reading it back to myself I feel uncomfortable, hoping the cliffhanger of every line will lead to an eventual resolution other than the one on the page. I wish I could turn back the clock and paint myself in a different light, but then I wouldn’t have this sliver of myself having just turned 29—premature, uncomfortable, unripe, wrestling, restless, brave, bold, and true.
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