New Year Blues
Hello,
I know its been months since I have written this newsletter and written to you all. To be honest I have been deep in grief this year, particularly since August. I’m feeling this year end with grief, feeling such a deep sadness for the state of this world, the violence in Palestine, the ceaseless violence of colonialism that is alive and present *today*. I think people love to think of colonialism as a thing of a long ago past, rather than a recent past, rather than a present moment.
I am nursing a heartbreak. Aren’t we all always nursing a heartbreak?
I think a part of my silence or inability to write has been that I haven’t felt like I’va had anything worth sharing. Nothing worth taking up space around, when it feels like a moment we need to all be listening. But I do think we all need to be grieving. Grieving intentionally and leaning into the darkness of it all in order to move towards a new future.
Are you tired? Of course you are. Is your body not exhausted by the work it takes to uphold the cognitive dissonance you need to get through day to day living?
I hope you each take the right to talk about the grief you are holding, the responsibility you’re carrying, the accountability you have towards action, - with the people you feel safe and trusted with. I hope you take the time to hold the power and privileges you’re holding within these conversations and spaces. I hope you feel safe enough to bring the grief of violence, colonialism, and your relationships into your therapy offices, as clinician and client.
I cut all my hair off and today my mother said I looked more beautiful with it long. I exploded, I am working on my anger, she is working on her tongue. But there was something about grieving and needing the external to change as the internal is changing. To have something just feel a little lighter amidst the heaviness of it all.
I think grieving means we are living, but I do not think this much grief is natural for us to process - especially not alone. So I hope you make some time to reach out to someone(s) you love or want to be closer to and create an opportunity to feel and be together. Maybe that is cooking a meal, maybe that is having tea and going on a walk, maybe that is ______?
But really let yourself feel what it’s like to be with them. Your energy and theirs dancing/holding/laughing/grieving together. Because every single one of those moments of us leaning towards one another, is an offering towards a new way of being. Together is the place we can cultivate hope for a new way of being, a new iteration of freedom.
Things I Have Been Listening To
My cat sneezing
Fave Books of 2023
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, Sangu Mandanna
Firekeeper’s Daughter, Angeline Boulley
Skye Falling, Mia Mckenzie,
Garlic and the Vampire, Bree Paulsen
I hope that you take the next couple days in this weird time portal in the Gregorian Calendar/Solstice time to tend to what needs to be tended to.
With love,
Debs