Saying Hello <3

Spring cleaning and new beginnings <3

Hello everyone! I hope you had a beautiful holiday weekend, and are having a great week. I was in Michigan, where the weather was perfect and the air was fresh. It was so nice to be on the ferry, on the water, seeing family, friends, and familiar faces. It always feels so good and grounding to be on Michigan land, to connect with where I was made, the place where I first lived, breathed, and existed.

I got back to NYC yesterday, and I spent a lot of time sorting through my things. I’ll be moving some of my stuff into a new workspace this summer, and I only want to bring the things there that I truly need in order to delve in with focus, to bring my work and practice to a new level. I want to really put all of my effort into reaching the goals I’ve been dreaming of for decades. I feel excited to get rid of everything I don’t need, that no longer serves, that could have a fresh new life with someone else. I’ve been sorting all of my belongings into different categories: apartment, workspace, donate/sell, and the sentimental precious things that I’ll probably always want to keep. This process gets more nuanced the more I get into it, and one of the things I am looking through is notebooks. There are blank ones, ones that have only a few pages written in, ones that are full. There are recent ones, ones from when I was a teenager or in my 20s. There are ones that are notes from classes/courses, ideas and brainstorms, journaling, poems, drawings. Some of them that I really want to take the time to transcribe into my computer, some that are worth revisiting.

Something that always takes me aback for a moment is the lists, letters, and goals that I write. Ever since I was a teenager I’ve written these things down, and they have barely changed at all. My goals pretty much remain the same as they were 20 years ago, with some subtle adjustments. Finding these lists and realizing I haven’t completed so many of the goals makes me shudder, feeling the pangs of light disappointment from my younger self. But then I take a moment and realize all of the other things I’ve accomplished, the unexpected things, and most important of them all, is the inner self work. The healing, the studying, the learning, the understanding. The depth of knowing, the processing, the painful and hard stuff that makes every day and experience more full and meaningful than it ever could have been before.

I found so many of these goal lists in old notebooks, fantasy biographies I wrote about my future self, letters of encouragement, action plans. Reading them I feel that fuel and fire to finally check them off the list, and I also have the sensation that everything is happening exactly as it’s meant to. My life would have taken a very different turn if I had accomplished these things at a younger age, -who knows what I would be doing now. That doesn’t matter though, the present reality is all I have access to, so I have faith that right now I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be in life.

I love to read my notebooks and writings from my teenage years, because I love the mentality I had about life. I still retain some of the same beliefs and values as I did back then, but certain things were just so fresh and potent because I was realizing and writing about them for the first time. The passion and conviction, where every word written couldn’t possibly be argued with.

My birthday is June 27, and I’ll be turning 37. It feels so strange to see that number, especially after reading all my notebooks, wanting to do things like publish my books and release my albums by the time I was 18, 21, 25, just in time for my 30th birthday, then 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, to be released on my 37th birthday,,,And now here we are, I’m about to be 37 and those particular goals aren’t accomplished yet, but I have made great progress and I’m 100% ready to amp things up and take it to the next level. There is so much pressure to accomplish things in our earliest decades, to hit these particular benchmarks that society measures us by. Some of us will follow a different path and a different timeline, and that is amazing and perfect. Everyone is different and everyone has a different story to tell, and it has to be told in their own time.

I want to invite you to do an exercise with me. In a yellow Little Prince notebook that I want to send to my friend Michael, I found a few pages of it were written in. There was a list of things I wanted for my room, a list of favorite songs. I wasn’t sure when these lists were from until I turned the page and found this one:

Just about 20 years ago, a list of things to be grateful for. Being that I’m about to turn 37 and I wrote this when I was 17, I thought it would be nice to do this exercise again.

So I’m taking a fresh notebook and I’m writing those words in the same way:

‘YOU’RE ONLY 37!!!!’

Even just writing it like that it completely shifts the perspective and I feel so thankful, with so much time and adventures ahead.

There are other ways to write this of course. I saw someone online petitioning to change the wording of age to ‘levels.’ Instead of saying, ‘how old are you?’ saying ‘what level are you at?’ Instead of saying, ‘I’m 17,’ saying, ‘I’m on Level 17.’ So we could try that, too:

‘YOU’RE ON LEVEL 37!!!!’

That brings a totally different feeling, one of pride and accomplishment, that I’ve made it this far and have gathered all these treasures and wisdoms along the way. That reaching a new level is such a gift to be excited about, a gift that not everyone is able to get.

I used to write myself a letter just before midnight every year on my birthday, saying goodbye to the age/year I just was. And then after midnight, I would write another one, welcoming myself to this new age/year. I loved that ritual, I don’t know why I stopped doing it a few years ago. It was a really nice way to transition into the year, to say a thankful goodbye to the old one. Maybe I will do that again this year but this time can write something like, ‘WELCOME TO LEVEL 37!’ We’ll see :)

In the meantime though, let’s write ourselves lists like this one I found from when I was 17. You can word the top in any way you like:

YOU’RE ONLY 37

YOU’RE ON LEVEL 37

HOW INCREDIBLE TO BE 37

HOW LUCKY TO BE 37

GRATEFUL TO BE 37

Etc.

And then let’s simply list the things we get to do, just like I did on my 17 list. I’m going to do mine today. I’ll share it tomorrow on Chat and if you do one too I hope you will post a picture of yours. You can also write your lists in the comments here, or any thoughts and ideas, anything you are feeling grateful for. You can also write if you have a different reaction, anything you feel stressed about, anxious or worried about, related to goals, age, anything. Do you have any goals that you haven’t gotten to yet? Any goals that are always there in your mind that it’s time to really delve into taking them to the next level? Please share any thoughts or ideas you had while reading this post, anything it brings up. Looking forward so much to reading your thoughts. Have a wonderful day and sending lots of love to you all.