Shwe

I went home for a bit over Halloween and in sharing my experience I said:

I don't even know if nostalgic is the right word because that implies a sense of something past that I am still fond of and although nostalgia happened, it was not the prevailing feeling, the prevailing feeling was something like the past and the present happening all at once, which theoretically, it is.

Chelsas past, "hey there"

Chelsas present/future, "hey girl, hey"

I am a we.

Not we in the sense of she and he and they, but We. As in more than one and one of many. I'd been low key feeling into what is up with me lately, identity wise. And when I say lately, I mean the past several months, years to be honest. She/her feels good because it is true enough for me. But I knew there was more, though I wasn't quite sure what that was or what it could be. "They" could work but that wasn't landing. Then during a savasana that was full of waaaay to many thoughts, I found/heard WE...and my heart settled.

My dad passed in February of 2018 and I thought I was doing alright, all things considered. Then sometime around late summer/early fall, I sort of folded in on myself. By late winter of 2019 I'd experienced dissociation for the first time and phoned a friend from home to come for a visit; just in case I needed her to fly me home to my family. She left here without me and I stripped myself of anything and everything that did not serve health and healing: dairy, sugar, alcohol, sex, gluten, caffeine, tobacco (I was a social smoker, eeks). This abstinence went on for years. It was hard, it was scary, it was me.

I had no plan. I just knew I would die if I didn't do something. And in a sense, I did die. I was never the same again, not really. After roughly 4 years, sex (still a wild card), gluten and sugar made their way back into my life. Of course my relationship with them was new and unfamiliar. There was both a freedom and vulnerability/insecurity in this new dynamic. On the one hand, I knew all about these things; on the other, I knew nothing. Sure, there was a core Chelsa(s) in there that survived, but she was almost as unfamiliar to me as a random stranger on the street.

All that to say, I met me! Kinda for the 1st time. And by extension, my relationship to and with all of those seemingly familiar/benign things, was also a kind of first time. I found the perfect 2:1 decaf:caf ratio, respectively, for my coffee; and alcohol, a powerful spirit medicine that I'd taken for granted for too many years, made it back on the scene this past summer (we are taking it slow).

And that has been the journey ever since, me meeting me and being like, "oh heeey!" "what are we up to these days!?" And being SUPER curious about the answer.

It's awesome and amazing and terrifying all at once, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

So yeah, Shwe.

a little musical fodder

• Everlong - Foo Fighters

• Catch - The Cure

  *maybe imaginge these are about you from you