that box in the sky

how the Tower falls, and lightning strikes

Some quick updates:

• I got myself into a writing slump, and overthinking spiral. Too loose parameters for the newsletter, and still navigating feels about oversharing

• work has been chaos spiral as it is now tax season, and like wat? since when have I really thought about year in quarters to this degree?

• Spring is finally upon us in Toronto, and even though it’s still chilly, I’m feeling that warmer weather shift that comes every year

• more or less “completed” The Artist’s Way with a circle of six, and I have opines for another day

• on the heels of above, I joined a writing group led by Emily Mais (whose Every Little Thing newsletter is one I have always delighted in catching up on)

It’s funny, the timing of the writing prompt from Emily Mais for this weekend’s meeting; I had been thinking a lot of how I got to where I am now. This point in time. And, what had moved me to here and all the things I’ve learned about myself in the past handful of years. I was looking at my own Instagram feed the other day, and I just feel like a different person. I feel like everything on it was so long ago, and I feel so far removed from myself from then but also not at all. There is still so much of me in those moments, but also thinking about where am I now?

Have you ever noticed that the universe shuts doors in our faces, or creates complete havoc - right when something beautiful is about to happen?
- Emily Mais

that box in the sky

I’d been stuck in that box in the sky since that last summer we all had. You know, the blissful one before the world shut down. Where we didn’t realize how blissful it was in the moment, or how it was going become a marker of before and after. The last summer where I made last minute plans, and stayed out late without care, and got that extra cocktail, and many a no problem, I got you. But, I didn’t even realize I was stuck. I felt I was finally free. Free of roommates, and living on my own. Free from the obligations and guilt that lead me here. Free to explore because everything else had held me back. Free to just be.

Yet, I wasn’t. Free to just be. I was stuck in my ways, in that box in the sky. Spending habits I never learned to control. Keeping up with the Joneses while being poisoned in a job that started the garden of greys in my hair. I wasn’t even taking leaps in the scariest parts of my unexplored world (being vulnerable with someone who could break my heart). And when the world shut down, and we all figured out a new normal, I spiralled further into habits and escapism that caught up to me. I was doggy paddling, and just doing what I knew. Surviving however I could, on my own, refusing to the suburbs to be with family, because I’d rather go at it solo. Buying things to fill a void. And even now, I can’t even recall what things I bought while I racked up my credit card. Dishes and boxes piling up on the surfaces of my little box in the sky. Barely any energy to ponder what was even going on. We were all surviving, anyway.

Then, when things were opening up again, and the new normal included some of the old normal, I kept in my tiny little box in the sky the holes I had been digging for myself. The holes that I couldn’t escape, as I felt that compulsion to want want want, without thinking over what I needed and what I could do without. I was fighting for respect in a job that was a dead end for me, with nowhere for me to go when the head of the table looked down on me. And, I didn’t even realize how much of myself I had been losing, as I tried to keep up with how I felt I should have been. How I expected others to see me. How much of myself I didn’t even know.

And, here’s the thing: when I got let go from that job—the one I knew was never a fit for me from the start—yes, I was angry, but also, I didn’t care. I was angry, and upset at mistreatment, and the lack of respect, but I was free. I was free from one piece of myself that I was digging away. Losing myself in trying to force others to see me how I wanted them to treat me. But, in the end, I didn’t care. It was a chance, an opportunity to get away, again. To get away from the expectations of me.

What I didn’t even realize, though, was that this was the first piece to fall from the Tower. The Tower where I had slotted in my super tiny little box in the sky. Where I stuffed every crevice with things and secrets in the shadows of want, and Joneses, and shouldn’t I be this type of person who has all the things? I didn’t realize that once one piece starts its tumble down, everything else is ready to topple over.

And, topple over it did.

But in the dust that settled, after my closest relationship fractured along cracks that had been precariously filled in the past, I moved home to fill them again.

I moved home to a new place where home never really felt like a home. Where I had been slowly picking up the pieces to build again. Where I have been letting go of the extra wants, and Joneses, and finding that place for me again. Where time has both slowed, and sped up, and all of a sudden, I’m wondering why it took me this long to figure out how to handle my finances. How to care less about what people think of me and my job. How to fight less with my mom over tone and translation. How to let go of what should be, and trust where I can go.

While I traded in the box in the sky where I could see over the city with the storms brewing, feeling a part of it all, for a room in the suburban middle of nowhere, I’m where I can feel the lightning strike. I’m on the ground, ready to risk that shock to move forward.

---

Things I’m Into Lately

I’ve fallen victim to the blind box game, and for your wallet’s safety, I won’t link to them. I have plush keychains in a Labubu (The Monsters) from the Exciting Macaron series (Sea Salt Coconut) and from the Have a Seat series (Ququ). And to date I’ve said that I will only get one from a series … I may end up bending because I got a CRYBABY and I lowkey want more from the Crying Again series. HALP. SOMEONE STOP ME.

I’ve been reading loads of fanfic, and honestly haven’t been reading much else. Any recommendations for lighthearted books? Preferably romance (but I am coming out of my romance-only phase, so I am OPEN).

Forget Sims!! (jk) I’m all about inZOI right now. Excuse me, but the uncanny valley hyperrealistic character creation, and the loads of options for personality and life path is so engrossing. I shan’t say it’s better than Sims because that’s just blasphemous, but it’s been quite enjoyable playing this life sim game!! And, if you have a Mac, you can use NVIDIA GeForce Now to play from Steam.