Disclaimer: if you’d like to listen to me read this post to you, click the audio above.
Dear Readers,
…I haven’t slept in my bed in weeks. I’ve assigned that duty to my couch, and I came to the conclusion that my bedroom is perhaps the only room in my apartment that I haven’t decorated since moving into this place in January 2022. All that I’ve invested in is a bedframe, a mattress, and some bedding from Target. Residing in the corner are two boxes of knick-knacks I brought from a different life I lived in New Orleans as another person, currently collecting dust because I haven’t found a place for them yet—a position to bring me joy.
So, naturally, within this tumultuous transition into someone new, I’ve needed to find a spot in my home to feel good in, and that is not my bedroom. It is bland, it is cluttered, and it mirrors a part of me I'm afraid to face.
My little sister, at the edge of transitioning to 30 years old next year, is trying so desperately to shake off the remnants of her 20s. She’ll come to me with so much uncertainty, a lot of it ego-based (in a very normal ass way) and coming from desperation to figure out her identity. She’ll share something that’s happened to her, something she thought would come to pass but hasn’t, a friendship that’s too unsteady to understand, a career that she sees but setback after setback can sometimes diminish the hope. Once again, all very normal things. But, she’s in pain because of it. It’s so visceral and the confusion of what to do next always feels high.
I get it. I’ve been there. Still might be.
My advice is that everything is working itself out as it should. Be patient and do nothing if you don’t know what to do. And that usually what you don’t want to do is what you have to do.
And then, as she reminded me the other day when she had a situation and thought to herself, “What would Cynthia say to this?” I will usually end my advice with:
“Don’t worry. You’ll come to a point where you get so tired of yourself, you’ll surrender and never look back.”
…or something like that. My wisdom finds new ways of saying the same thing. But! I do believe in what I said very faithfully. Whenever I reflect on the life I chose to live the moment my edge brought me to the cliff I was slated to leap from, I think back to who I was right before it happened. At 29 years old, I was a person I couldn’t stand, sadly. I didn’t know what I could do. I looked around me, and fear had blinded me from seeing the beauty in anything. All time felt wasted, everything felt too precious to lose—
Man. I held on to so much. Bag lady, for real.
And then, I broke. I dropped the bags and I cried and screamed and surrendered in a way where ANYTHING was better than this, I didn’t care how scary it was. That was New Orleans. Something so drastic to shock me out of my dark familiar, that I had nothing else to look forward to but this new and big thing.
But it took being really tired of myself and my ego. My fear of doing something new, to be someone else, to take a chance I had no idea could work, but my GOD, I just had to SEE what I was capable of.
I remember going through the phase where I blamed our governments and political systems that have our society in a chokehold. I remember going through the phase where I blamed my parents for what they didn’t teach me, for what trauma they passed on, for the expectations they forced me to fulfill, for not choosing to learn how to accept me as I was, but instead, compare me to my sisters and my classmates. I remember going through the phase of blaming my former romantic situationships/partners, for not knowing how to love me, how to listen, how to nurture the wounds that took residency in my spirit, for not being who I wanted them to be, for not abandoning themselves to fulfill my fantasies.
Everyone was the problem, and because of that, so was I. I was a big problem.
I was a walking red flag, and I couldn’t forgive myself for being so.
Because, then I’d have to acknowledge that I learned all of this, which means that it can be unlearned. It means so much of my life comes from what I decide, and even if I don’t know how to exercise it, the power I have. And fuck, is it scary to realize you are powerful.
It shouldn’t be, but it feels like a burden. And that’s because so much of what we identify with power comes from how we service a poison, not how we service creation. Not how we service the community. Not how we service LIFE. To forgive myself for digesting all the hurt I was spoonfed, I had to forgive that others who hurt me suffered the same fate, and many of them either do not or have yet to know how to do better.
And, let’s be clear. Some people are just fucking assholes, dude. Just… garbage. Dedicated to being hellraisers for the rest of their lives, and wrecking anything that gets in their way. We are not here by ourselves. So much of who we think we are comes from neglect, abuse, scarcity, ambivalence, lack of care, etc. People who don’t even know or care about us have dictated how we show up in the world and who gets left behind. That’s sick.
But… We are our greatest responsibilities. And in order to become tired of yourself, you have to be willing to be very honest with the complexities of all of (flails arms about) THIS.
Getting tired of myself meant sitting down to realize what exactly was making me sad or unhappy, and being honest with the possibility that I might be making myself sad or unhappy because of my fear of doing what needed to be done, and it looking very different from what people forced me to believe. I had to be honest about what I wasn’t willing to do yet, because that is, eventually, what will need to be done. And maybe the confrontation of my relationship with the fear will make me stronger in overcoming it.
So much of our pain and inability to grow comes from the person we think we are and whom we are unwilling to release. So much is wrapped up in how we view ourselves, and how we think the world sees us. We want the world to meet us at this low point, instead of taking the initiative to meet not the world, but our greatest selves at their high point. And sometimes, even evaluating who your greatest self is, is necessary. Is that person from ego or from purpose? From who you want to be just to feel this false notion of security and power, or who you KNOW you’re meant to be from something warm and intense structuring you for a life of service and expansion?
You have to be willing to take full responsibility for how you handle the life you live because no one else CAN. And no one outside of you can be forced to give you what you want (unless you throw money at them, but still).
So much about life is collaboration. So much about self is honesty.
I’ve been so exhausted over the last few months from servicing an entertainment machine that runs on toxic fumes. I look around me, and it’s an epidemic of fatigue. I’ve noticed how I’ve picked up habits that don’t put me in a good place because I’m too tired to think as straight as I’d like.
In some weird way, it feels like I’m 29 years old again, looking around me and asking, “Is this it? This can’t be it. No. No, this can’t be how I live.” Granted, it’s not as bad, but it’s not as good, either. I mean, shit, I’m not sleeping in my bed. I’m too tired to give myself to writing the way I want, and I’m still so afraid of it. I’ve slacked on taking my vitamins. I don’t eat enough vegetables. I sleep too late. My hair is unkempt, most days. I’m not praying enough. My house is a mess and I’m just one gotdamn person, why should it be so messy?!—
I’m holding on to things I picked up a while ago, and I’m growing tired of myself.
Two sessions ago, my therapist told me that what’s about to happen isn’t a new event, it’s a new ME. I turned 33 years old last month, and it was 3 years ago I changed my life. I’ve been dutiful to surrendering, something I was terribly afraid of. So, my next journey is asking me to be dutiful to something I’m not good in. And that’s urgency. That’s my writing. That’s my face, my visibility, my leadership, my creativity. And my ambitions are right there. I can feel my impatience for what I’m not willing to do growing. I notice things are becoming more important now, things I was too afraid to take investment in. And all of my newness is asking for me to stop blaming everything else, and just do what needs to be done.
Be so tired of the resistance to what NEEDS to happen so you can get to yourself sooner.
My bedroom is bland because I haven’t taken the opportunity to bring color into it yet, like my new life.
My bedroom is cluttered because I haven’t looked through the things I’ve brought with me that I no longer need, like the baggage I know I can’t carry over into my new self.
My bedroom mirrors a part of me I'm afraid to face, and that part of me is my power.
So, I can turn this cube of a room into a chamber of dreams. I can find solace in my bed and not my couch. I just have to embrace being so tired of the habit of avoidance and finger-pointing, that there is too much excitement in the opportunity to love this next thing.
Get tired of yourself.
So much, so that you will not avoid the necessities.
This next person needs a bed of honesty to lie in. I would know, I’ve avoided mine for far too long.
Love,
Cyn
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