The nature of ticks
or, those themes in your life that just won't let go
Hi loves,
I spent the morning reading an old journal of mine from January 2017. I don’t often look back at these, but every so often I feel compelled to dive back into where my life was at a particular point in time.
This particular point in time sat within a series of journal entries between December 2016 and February 2017 which coalesced into a fairly large turning point in my life. It was my decision to leave San Francisco for Denver, to start a career less focused on tech and more focused on writing and teaching, and the verdict that I needed to insert some necessary-though-difficult distance between myself and my parents (mid-divorce at the time) along with a number of friends who still saw me as this sortof sad and pathetic divorced girl with no real plan.
There was a lot going on at that time.
The entries that lead up to these decisions are both entertaining and repetitive. The pages themselves are riddled with pain and insecurity, covered in tear stains and cyclical theories that waffle between self-doubt and self-loathing. There is a desperate obsession with social media, a paralyzing fear of what people think, a pervasive drive to escape.
The entries are dark and yet somehow, full of hope. There is the prospect of a new place to call home, of a career that could be a better fit for me, the thought of making new friends and new memories. There were lights at the ends of tunnels and things to look forward to after years of feeling stuck and lost and alone. Finally, it appeared there might be new life ahead. Possibly a new identity on the horizon.
What I find most interesting about looking back on this point in time, is that there are differences and similarities in how my life is now. On one hand, I have come so tremendously far. I am so much more secure and happy in myself and the life I have built here. It fills me with a sense of gratitude to think of how much more balanced my life is now, how much more joy and love there is in it. And yet on the other hand, there are themes throughout these pages that still exist and ensue in my mind — over six years later.
There are many cycles I have broken. And there are a few others I have not.
Part of what I love about journaling is that I feel it’s a rare gift to be able to magically teleport back to a time in my life. I gain incredible perspective when I can look back and re-live through a time that seemed so dire and so confusing, knowing I made it to the other side. It is a humble reminder of how far I’ve come within myself, how much progress I’ve made in becoming the person I have always wanted to be.
And it’s a helpful reminder too, to see the ways that certain limiting beliefs still run rampant in my mind. That there are themes that have been around in my life longer than I care to acknowledge. That I find myself journaling today about the same things I journaled about almost seven years ago. That in some ways, it’s as if nothing has changed.
There are common threads that appear to exist in my life irrespective of circumstance or time. They are there in the good and there in the bad. They appear throughout the fray and disillusionment, and they appear in the most positive and balanced of times. Like pesky little ticks, they stay burrowed under our skin, just lingering around in some sort of perverse and haunting fashion.
This is just part of being human I suppose. Of always growing and evolving.
We can make it so far along our journey in some ways. And yet we find there is always more work to be done.
There are always little inklings from the past that stick around when they are not addressed.
There are always little patterns to resolve.
There are always ugly reminders of what we have chosen not to look at.
There are always ticks to be burned over and won.
I hope you all have a wonderful week ahead! I’ll be leaving for a trip to Iowa on Tuesday, so stay tuned for updates on my first time there. I’ll be writing to you next week from the Mississippi! Thank you for being here xo
