Letter to 22-year-old Life
content warning: brief & undetailed mention of suicidal ideation
Dear Life,
It’s 2011. You are 22.
You graduated NYU a few months ago and you are pouring your heart and soul into building a video production company. You are on the precipice of turning your life upside down and you have no idea what is coming your way. You have no idea what will be asked of you.
You will have to burn it all down before you can build it all up again. You will learn to relate to yourself beyond ideas of success and failure. You’ll learn that you have always been on your own team.
You will have to face the buried secrets of your childhood. You will begin putting together a picture of the context of your life and be horrified at all that you have buried.
What has been buried has not been lost.
You have no idea that you are about to go on a journey of intense personal healing, that will lead you to confront the legacies of colonization, patriarchy, capitalism, ableism, and white supremacy that you have inherited. The violations that you’ve experienced must be grieved.
You will self-isolate. You will take your friends for granted and let them down.
There is no way to avoid facing death.
You will spend years in hypervigilance- fearful of letting your guard down, hopeful that your shield will help you avoid repeating the mistakes of your past. You will meet someone with the patience and care to hold you through your transformations.
You will doubt and question and probe, but you will learn that these are protection mechanisms from a history of wounding, not signs that you must flee and take cover. You will experience deep joy in the expansive range of your intimate relationship. You will learn how to love and be loved in ways that honor your needs. You will learn how to set boundaries. You will find your voice and use it.
What has been buried has not been lost.
Your friends will welcome you back when you’re ready. You will rebuild their trust. You will dismantle expectations of perfection- in yourself and in your relationships. These friendships will become a golden thread of love, weaving joy and care into your life.
You will become a dog and cat person/parent. (Seriously!!) Loving them will be such sweet medicine for your nervous system.
You will continue to listen to peoples’ stories and help them share them. The sacred space of interviewing will nourish you time and time again.
You will learn how to share your own stories. You will learn the gifts of privacy, intimacy, and disclosure. You don’t owe anyone your story. Your story is allowed to be fluid.
You will learn how to lead. You will learn how to let go.
You will be loud. You will be silent. You will be trembling. You will question your own truth. You will make your family mad. You will bring them together. You will fall apart. There will be times when you don’t want to live. Capitalism makes it harder.
Despair will end. Hold on. Your trauma isn’t your story.
You will be seen in your truth. You will make space for mystery.
You will visit the underworld, the labyrinth of your inner landscape. You will learn the symbolic language of your soul, of how you speak with the divine. You will discover the immensity of your imagination, and how to dream with your whole body. You will learn how to reach out within the web of life and death that you belong to.
You will remember that you are earth. You will find holy communion in your earthbody. You will hear the voice of your ancestors in your cells. You will be held in the circle of their care.
You will excavate your shame and hold it, pulsing, in your hands. You will grieve. You will rage. You will melt. In the surrender of finally feeling, you will remember your true name- Life.
From the ashes of your trauma, you will begin again.
You will learn how to feel. You will dance your sorrow and your praise. You will learn how to stop running.
What has been buried has not been lost.
You will discover so many different textures of your soul, and how it longs to create on this earth.
You will discover a visual artist in yourself, who is patiently waiting for the space you’ll give them.
You will delight in creation. In queerness. In multiplicity & multidimensionality. You will be a creative magician. A story alchemist. A devoted companion to living. A chalice, bursting with sunflowers.
You will build your sanctuary, over and over again, surrounding yourself with all that gives you pleasure.
You will make Life a love story.
(Even when you’re getting through a pandemic by re-watching Sex and the City over and over….)
Your seasons of grief and joy will be interwoven, again and again, naming your wholeness.
You will bloom again. You will bloom again. You will bloom again.
I love you forever and always, to infinity and beyond,
Life
