Hi friend,
It’s been a minute.
I had every intention of keeping up with my newsletter writing but 2024 started off with a bang. At the end of January, I had a house fire (luckily no one was home and we’re all safe and sound). My family had to be relocated to temporary housing and it’s unclear when we’ll be able to go back home. A day after the fire, my aunt with advanced Alzheimer’s was taken to hospital. She doesn’t have a partner or children so I am her de facto caregiver. Managing all of these moving parts, along with parenting and running a business has been…intense.
I am aware of the fact that none of what I’m going through makes me special or unique. We’re all going through stuff and figuring out how to navigate life in these messy times. It’s been humbling for me to notice just how fragile my mental health is, even with so many tools and resources at my disposal. I’m also constantly surprised by how unprepared I am for this phase of life. I naively thought that midlife would be about solving one problem after another. Instead, it feels like an onslaught of problems happening all at once without much of a chance to come up for air.
I’ve been reminding myself of something I learned from meditation teacher Ajahn Sumedho. He has a simple saying which goes, “right now it’s like this.” What does this mean? For me it’s the acknowledgment that I always want more of the good stuff and less of the bad. That’s how life is and it’s probably one of the reasons why I end up unhappy. What if it were possible, instead of focusing on what I don’t like about a given situation, I could just tell myself “right now it’s like this.” It doesn’t mean that I’m okay with how things are but it leaves room for the possibility that I can coexist with difficulty without freaking out. Another benefit of “right now it’s like this” is that the phrase gives me just right amount of pause in the midst of a wobble. It reminds me that I can be okay with whatever isn’t okay. It’s a gateway to relating to what’s happening, inside and outside. Rather than push negative feelings away I can simply allow them to be there.
Dropping all that effort feels relaxing.
I’ll leave you with this poem from James A Pearson:
THIS SPRING
How can I love this spring
when it’s pulling me
through my life faster
than any time before it?
When five separate dooms
are promised this decade
and here I am, just trying
to watch a bumblebee cling
to its first purple flower.
I cannot save this world.
But look how it’s trying,
once again, to save me.
With love, care and gratitude,
Vesna
The love list:
Watching: Ramy Youssef: More Feelings
Reading: Somebody’s Daughter by Ashley C. Ford
Listening: Vida by Ana Tijoux