[a year in review] 2020 edition, part 1

Recently, I posted this to Instagram; it’ll be a launchpad for an exploration I’ve been circling for a while now:

Exactly one year ago today we took a trip to Europe.

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We’d spend a brief weekend visiting with friends in Munich & take a train up to Gdańsk, Poland for a week . . .

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We didn’t anticipate what would be taking place in northern Italy while we were off in Poland, so with big question marks in our minds we boarded our planes to Florence, just in time for the nationwide lockdown.

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It was one of the most surreal experiences of my life.

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After eight days of the gorgeous Tuscan sun & experiencing Florence like it was an in-person Instagram (the art — the messages of encouragement — the unity despite the tension in the air all inspired me), we came back to the US, to do it all over again.

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Just reflecting on that time on this very odd anniversary.

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Be well. 💖

Something I wasn’t the biggest fan of in 2020 (of many!) was the general consensus around it being a shitty year.

For me, 2020 was a pivotal and important AF year to experience — and while it was for sure not easy for maybe anyone(!), it was an opportunity to really deepen into this lived human experience.

So without attachments to convincing anybody of anything or making bypassy forced-positivity platitudes about it, I’m letting you know to expect some future posts around my grounded reflections and takeaways from 2020.

I’m noticing as I write this that I feel a bit restless, and it’s probably because I feel like I’m “outing” myself — 

As of the week before this writing, I’d finally reached the milestone of backposting all the old content to this new iteration of my site. Since I’d done it manually (I didn’t have any official backups, so thank God/dess for the Wayback Machine!), the practice of backposting had me confronting a lot of past versions of myself.

And that was, actually, the point of reposting my old content. I wasn’t doing it because I was thrilled about the old posts; actually if you asked the passionate, perfectionistic artist within my soul, she’d have told you she wanted to burn it all down.

But I’m on a lifelong quest to deepen in the love for myself, my whole damn self, which includes past iterations of me. The only thing I seek to burn down now is the protective structures of shame keeping things a secret from the world.

And what I saw as I ran this audit on my old posts was this thin veil over much of what I wrote: this “I’m here sharing with you but only the parts I deem acceptable.” It was a curated, controlled version of me that was more concerned about how I’d be perceived than actually expressing something deeper.

This isn’t to say I’m a fan of airing your dirty laundry out on the World Wide Web; I’m as entitled to the type of shit that happens in life as anyone else — otherwise I wouldn’t be human.

But I’ve finally gotten to a place where I’m truly ready to voice the real me and allow you to see me in that.

This comes with its own emotional ramifications (hence the restless feeling), but I trust myself now to take care of what I need in order to share from this place.

Ooh. Now I feel excited! Can you feel the fire in your belly?

I’ll be back soon. Promise.

Love,