And The Clouds They Felt Like Magic
September.
I love it. Traditionally September is the month that is the transformative stage between Summer and Autumn, significant with its harvest moons and the leaves falling and crunching under feet that are still adorned in summer shoes. It is officially the weather that calls for a vest and flip-flops but also a waterproof coat. Hot and and sticky and simultaneously it might be time to get the heating on.
Recently I have been feeling so peaceful, so calm. After the past few years of distress and depression, it is with a deep sigh of relief that I wake up nearly every day peaceful and creative, and quiet. I stretch out my skin, my 33-year-old skeleton creaks just a little. Phoebe lays next to me, her 3-year-old dog’s body tired from 4 am zoomies. I have been given the opportunity to slow down this year, my work part-time and my thoughts are too. After years and years of overthinking and overextending my energies into the wrong places and the wrong people, my energy is all my own, my heart is all my own. This is what I have been doing with it.
I have spent most of my adult life in unsuitable relationships. Only in their absence have I noticed the most dramatic differences in me. For years I had myself questioning my worth, doubting my intelligence, my body, my soul. Years of trying to convince people to love me, to show up for me. To fight for me. I left my last relationship so exhausted from the battle of trying to be accepted that my deflated body and defeated heart sat down together and wept. And after we wept we sat together and contemplated. And what we discovered was all my love was being poured into people and places that were pulling me to pieces willfully and endlessly. Given the opportunity they would continue to do so. I found myself longing to belong to nobody else but myself. I wanted all of that love that I so passionately offered to be given to my reflection. I wanted my heart to feel full. To feel safe. I found myself longing to be held, to feel grounded and secure.
So I cut everything off. Everything and everyone who hurt me, who refused me, who rejected me. Anything and everything that was too heavy was cast aside. In a frenzy I removed every difficult or confusing situation and threw it away from me, uncaring of the consequences and prepared for my actions to have them. Much like The Day Of Rage I had back in 2022 I ripped and tore away from everything that I felt was causing me pain.
Sitting in the scattered surroundings of my relationships and commitments I settled into a routine. It involved a lot of crying. It was a hibernation of my entire being. Depression had felt like a numbness, this felt slower. I moved back into my Mums for two months while I gathered myself together, I spent an extraordinary amount of time in the B&M carpark. I found true love in those spaces surrounded by my family. After living by myself for a few years to come home felt so warm and settled, the telly at my seaside flat replaced with my siblings voices, my mums continuous coming and going throughout the day a joy and a comfort. The garden I lack at my flat a welcome reprieve at my mums. A Summer spent smoking and contemplating in the garden. I read 8 books. Hungry, I ate conversations and community like chocolate biscuits with tea.
After a long time, I went home. I reassembled. I spent awhile in convalensence, routinely going to work and the gym and walking Phoebe. I cried a lot more. I grieved for places I didnt feel like me anymore. And then I admired the sky. I felt the earth under bare feet. I walked through grass and held friends hands. I didn’t feel like drawing anymore, but I took up crochet. I took up offers to go to dinner. I said yes to festivals and friendship and danced in the night with wine and cigarettes. Each and every one of these actions gave me love and self-belief. The moons were full all Summer. I saw as many sunsets as I could, I tried to see the sunrises. I started to let go of things that were hurting me, my broken heart healing at last. Just like clearing out my heart, I started to clear my physical space. My stressful and shameful mountain of washing had become an imposing and threatening monster in the corner of my bathroom, shut away and stinky and laughing at me through the thoughtless commentary of unempathetic ex-boyfriends ‘you will never get your shit together’ they said. With this insult reverberating through my soul I ripped apart my small flat. I unearthed years of clutter, clothes and rugs burrowed under the bed, mismatched socks strewn around my room, my oversized comfort clothing unfolded became folder and arranged and the rest taken to the charity shop. I laid landlord-friendly flooring in my bathrooms, I spray-painted the banisters.
I hung some fucking chandeliers.
After this exorcism of my immediate environment, I could have breathed smoke. I felt so enormously lifted. I felt so enormously powerful.
It came as a shock to me when I would feel settled. I was so unaware of how much my energy and my love had been so devoted to the wrong people and places that I started to discover that when my energy was all my own, my love belonging to only me, just how much of it there was. Suddenly I was able to get out of bed quickly in the morning, I would have a breakfast of eggs and avocados and coffee, one cigarette, and go to the gym. I could meet a friend for lunch and laugh over cake. With the same friend, we would skateboard (yes Laura, if you are are here this friend is you!) And I found myself in love all over again. I fell in love with my life, with my friends, with their loud laughs and louder support. With wine around dinner tables and late-night conversations. Taking the long way home had never felt so right.
With all my energy renewed and large I took my body to be tattooed with meaningful and fun work, skulls and frogs and crystals and leant into the energy of the universe. With my new abundance of knowing I took myself to get a new job (hello Saltrock I am coming for you, baby!) With the smile in my heart I took myself home, my bones wizened, knew the way.
The most delightful return of all is my return to creativity. I realise now how burnout isn’t just the description of a physical or mental block stopping you from making. It is an entire state of being. I can tell you hand on heart I was physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted. Fatigued. I felt like even the effort of walking, talking and breathing felt heavy. My brain which already has the slow processing speeds of trauma and ADHD and Dyslexia felt like it had come to a complete standstill. My already compromised comprehension skills stood at 0% But as the months progressed and my energy grew, I invited people into my space who see me, who hear me, and who hold me. I returned to commitments, I had long felt guilty over, some of which I am still working on (I am so thankful to each and every one of you for your kindness and patience, and understanding) and some of which I completed. I felt SO GOOD about completing work I had been wishing to complete for MONTHS.
It feels like I have been working on this sense of peace my entire life. For me, the act of creating art is just one way in which I create. To feel truly in my creative and arty energy I have to feel creative in every way. Its in my first coffee of the day, in the places I walk Phoebe. It’s in the energy I share with friends and the laughter that bursts from them. It’s in hands held over tables in supportive and kind conversations about the past and the future. It is in the dinner I make for myself in the late evening. It’s in the way I run so fast at the gym. In every single way creativity is how I live. I see the flowers that other people can’t. I cried the other day when I saw the full havest moon, my heart stood still as I watched her huge and gentle and guiding. So humble. So happy. It has taken me so long to get here, but here I finally am.
Summer is nearly over, September is nearly at its end and although the days get shorter and the sun is lower in the sky, the feel of the wind on my skin feels refreshing and heartfelt. Soft and promising. Yesterday I took Phoebe for a walk. The sun was high in the sky and the wind had a chill, I came around the buildings to the side of my house. I had been inside all day, working and drawing and crossing things off my to-do list. I felt content as Phoebe pulled me along to the common. The shadows from the houses next to me had me wrapped closer in my oversized coat. And then, daylight. Blinding beautiful loud daylight. I felt childlike and wonderful as I looked to the sky. The clouds took my breath away, the sky took my breath away. It was like the whole sky was sparkling, large and imposing. The clouds so defined, almost cartoon in their fluttering across the clear blue sky. I felt so small, Phoebe smaller still.
And the clouds, they felt like magic.
It feels like it has taken a lifetime of heart break and bad relationships and self rejections, not understanding my capabilities and limitations, and surrounding myself with people and situations who reflected my insecurities and reinforced my struggles, to finally choose myself. But in this month before my 34th birthday for the first time I am in love truly and powerfully and unendingly, I have met someone who supports me, who believes in me, and who will fight for me. Someone who cares deeply and truly and will always be there.
That person is me. And I am so happy. For the first time in a long time, I am just happy.
Feeling creative again for the first time in a long time, feeling soft and unguarded and energetic and magnetic. I feel so protected and calm. And I can’t wait to share with you all, to move into Winter this year together dear readers, lets make this one a gentle one, let’s make it feel like magic.
There are so many things I want to write about, so many moments to reflect upon in this year that made me chose myself, but for tonight with the rain and the lamps low, it is time to put the heating on, get cozy and have a cup of tea and a cuddle with my dog.
Thank you for still being here babies,
Until next time,
Love Bitsifind x