Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very.

♡

[Note! I wrote this post yesterday, and then didn’t post it because I wanted to sleep on it, which turned out to be the right move.]

What do I want?

I’m not sure yet exactly. Let me just start with some points that are true for me right now, and see what I notice about how they might or might not relate to each other.

Point: I am in bed at 1pm on a Sunday.

Point: That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, that’s what Sundays are (supposedly) for, right? I mean, sleeping in and lazing in bed on a weekend for as long as you like, with no interruptions easily goes in the Top 200 Best Things About Not Living In Bolivia.

Point: The monsters and time gremlins are not buying this. They think being in bed past 8am at the latest is a sure sign of Impending Doom: Things Are Clearly Going Terribly Wrong, And Will Go EVEN MORE Terribly Wrong If I Act Like This Is Legitimate And Not An Emergency, Because It Obviously Is.

Point: It’s December. Everything is either cold, grey and annoying, or christmas-ey and annoying. To me. I know some people love either or both of those things.

Point: Three years ago I wrote a blog post called The Campaign To Bring Back Hibernation. I still feel pretty strongly about this, and have not acted on it at all.

Point: I did not set things up this year so that I could hibernate in December, and I have insane amounts of work waiting for me.

Point: I am having trouble motivating myself to do non-hibernating things. Partly this is recovering from rally. Partly this is just my deep desire to only do hibernating things. Partly this is reeling from the last two years of All The Barns Burning and All The Broken Pots. Partly this is just what needs to happen right now.

Point: I think I need to just let everything take ten times longer than I expect it will or think it should, and this is hard for me.

Point: For the past three years I have taken a morning aerobics class that I refer to as whatsit. Noun and verb. I am going to a whatsit. I just whatsited. And last week I stopped going because of [time/money/stuff]. It turns out that without whatsit I have no reason to ever get out of bed, ever. Apparently the only thing that gets me out of bed is that otherwise I miss the bus to whatsit, and without whatsit, I don’t have my dopamine fix. I am not sure how I got out of bed prior to being a whatsiteer, I don’t seem to have any intel about that.

What do I want?

I want to enjoy my sweet hibernation time in bed, without guilt or self-recrimination.

I want to trust, with deep certainty, that I still have the option of getting out of bed, should I desire to.

I want to remember that Now Is Not Then, and that this is not that horrible long summer when R died and all the bad things happened and I couldn’t get out of bed for very different reasons.

I want new morning rituals, and sources of support, so that I can feel invigorated about my day, whenever I choose to begin it.

And I want to go back to whatsit, and I want a plan.

What do I want?

[It turned out that what I wanted was to take a break from this, so I did many very impressive things, including:

• Getting out of bed(!)
• 20 minute workout(!)
• Laundry(!)
• Making an omelet(!)
• Coloring in the coloring book(!)
• Going for a walk to the ninja before it got dark(!)

This was all good. And, like I said, very impressive.]

What do I want?

To trust my instincts.

To set things up for me in ways that are supportive and kind.

You know how teachers get summers off? I want winters off.

I want my job during these months to be curling up in bed, taking care of myself, taking baths, watching movies, looking for clues. Like that.

I don’t know how that would work, and there are a million trillion monsters in that wish, and that is what I want, so that means I need to create safety for myself and for this sweet wish.

This is the very definition of a tiny, sweet thing, so I am not going to mention this to anyone who would criticize it or tell me why it’s never going to work. I can do that on my own, thank you very much.

What else do I know about what I want?

Even if I can’t get my wish, I can access qualities of my wish.

And I can definitely access the part of my wish that has to do with releasing guilt, because that is the work of my life and I am going to get better at this through practicing.

Where/how do I want to start?

Noticing elements of the pattern, with love. Noticing where I assume that Something Is Wrong, when in fact there is no current evidence to support that theory. Noticing how much fear I have that now is going to be like then, and how I can change now (or: change my experience of now, which is the same thing) by letting that fear be legitimate while still not taking it too seriously.

What are the qualities of my wish?

Peacefulness. Trust. Lightness. Comfort. Treasure. Experimentation. Sweet Ease. Flow.

And the superpowers of and What If All Timing Is Right Timing.

What would help me move forward on this? How am I going to play with this?

Conducting. Skipping stones. Secret spirals. Taking notes. Partnering with Agent Em Dee.

Remembering things that have been true for me in other Decembers, and adding this intel to the Almanac.

Anything else?

Tuna casserole. (This is a memory. A good one.)

My housemate will stretch with me in the morning in front of the fireplace if I remember to ask, so if I know that is going to happen, I will get up and join in.

What else do I want?

Seeds planted without explanation, a mix of secret agent code and silent retreat dreams. Things I’m working on, or might be, someday…

• The Salve of Salves.
• The Compass of Signs.
• May Peacefulness Prevail!
• Announcements.
• Everything is getting easier.
• Miracles everywhere.
• Regular dancing gigs at the ballroom, which is also the Spiegelsaal.
• This doesn’t require my input!
• Ha, it’s so perfect that it turned out like this.
• Past me is a GENIUS.
• I have what I need, and I appreciate it.
• There is money for this.
• Trust and steadiness. I can see why this moment is good.
• Hawaii.
• I am fearless and confident, and I do the brave things and give myself sparklepoints, and it is not even a big deal that I did the brave things but I still get sparklepoints, yay.

This week’s ops?

Operation Solstice. Operation More Options. Operation Tell The Story In Bits And Pieces. Mission Mad Hot.

I’m playing with…

DANCING. Breathing. Transitions. Permission.

As well as: Hello, habit, you are so interesting and I am learning many things about you and about me.

Attenzione! AGENTS.

I am deep in an undercover mission to get better at Gracefully Accepting Thanks. Or: Glowing Receptivity and Being Receptive to Glow.

This mission also resolves a question we get from people a lot, which is “I really, really want to thank you, except I’m not going to buy products and I can’t come to a Rally.” And it is also related to Operation Coming Out Of All The Closets, so I can share some experiences from Then where past-me thought her best survival strategy was not-sharing-how-hard-things-are.

If you would like to support my mission by sharing sweetness and appreciation for any aspect of my work, I would love that. You can do it with the magic of words, through the comments, or add something to Barrington’s Discretionary fund. (Explanation!)

And if the way you are glowing appreciation is quietly in your heart, I like that too. It all counts. ♡

Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.

So. Last week, aka Many happy returns…?

My wish had to do with the theme of returning, and that launched some very interesting internal investigations. I learned about many different kinds of silence, as well as some things I need to let go of in order to return to myself.

My wish was also about ritual, community and companionship for Solstice, and I was able to set that up, so now it’s happening! Yay. Very excited. It filled quickly, though I think we could probably make room for one more person.

The smartest thing I seeded last week (that I know of) was “ha, it’s so perfect that it turned out like this” because I was hyper aware this week of how true that is.

Thank you, writing. Thank you, me who asked.

Keep me company?

You are welcome to drop in with wishes, gwishes, visions, personal ads. Small or large, and in any form you like. There is no right way to do this. Updates on past experiments are welcome too, as is anything sparked for you.

Commenting culture: This is safe space for creative exploration. We ask for what we need. We are on permanent vacation from care-taking and advice-giving. We are here to play.

Let’s throw some things in the pot! And, as always, amnesty applies. Leave a wish here any time you want.

xox