July washed away in the rains, but we stood our ground, playing summer play-pretend even though it was fourteen degrees and our feet were always wet. Raincoats and boots, towels and umbrellas, fairy lights and speakers in tents as we partied beneath canvas instead of sky.
August brought some sun but now we’re back in autumn-like drizzle and I float to the surface of our midsummer chaos, clutching blurry pictures and fleeting memories, pieces I will try to fit together and see if it will ever make sense.
There’s fresh life in our veins. New connections, love and lessons from these people who have quickly become so important to us. We’re teaching each other things, things we’ve previously struggled to grasp.
The recurring theme lately is self-love. It pops up everywhere like a bad joke. It infuses all our conversations, concludes every Pattern update. Is this the meaning of life? To get to a place where we can fully embrace ourselves, just as we are?
It starts with us, it always does.
I feel I don’t deserve love, you said. I know what that feels like. No one else can see our rubble and filth, our shameful piles of mental grime and emotional clutter. Only we can see that, and it’s ugly. From the outside we look shiny, whole, contented. So we feel like frauds. But we’re not. We’re just human.
And then you sat with me as I did the task from the chakra book, the one where you have to compose a letter to your inner child. It made me so nauseous that I couldn’t get the words out. But you sat there holding me until I did it, and then you shook me with the biggest grin, yelping well done and I’m so proud of you.
How come I deserve love and you don’t?
𑄷
If I don’t find a way to love myself, I will never stop living from my wounds. I won’t be able to stop reacting from the rejected child who is simmering inside me, the one who feels so hopeless and wrong. When I stumble on a trigger, she throws a tantrum. So I rage at her, and then I’m caught in a vortex of screaming and self-negation.
The answer? Duh. Self-love (ick).
If only it were that easy.
By a campfire at dawn, I talk it through with N. He tells me to break it down. It starts with breathing. Take a deep breath, let the feeling wash over you. It’s not going to kill you. Then, remember the objective. What are you trying to achieve here? The ego will thrash and wail. Let it. Beyond that is a more peaceful voice who reminds you what is important, what will actually help.
Because it’s time to grow up. The universe won’t cut me any more slack. It has been trying to coax me into learning these lessons, and now it has lost patience. It has grabbed me by the ear and slapped me in the face. IT’S TIME.
So I try. I think about teaching our dog new tricks, the gentle baby step approach, and the constant reassurances, encouragements, rewards. We should treat ourselves like puppies: one teeny tiny step at a time, followed by self-congratulations and treats.
In between the classes of Life, we go all in, the four of us against the world.
In the early hours of Sunday, during the final throaty gasps of Secret Garden Party, we refuse to let the night end. When the last forgotten, disco-ball-lit room closes and a broad-shouldered security guard crosses his arms in front of its doors, we gather in the drizzle and continue on.
A devoted group of rebellious gardeners create their own event using a small speaker on top of a side table which they carry from location to location to escape security. Table Stage, last one open! They gurn and grin with their wild 4am eyes, and pass a phone around so that everyone can queue a song. We’re all drained and useless and ecstatic—higher than the Empire State—and we don’t know these people but we are family now, for a few hours in the mud and rain, before the magic wears off.
Everywhere else is boarded off and shut down, lights going out, security blocking us out, but here we are at the edge of the galaxy, dancing through the apocalypse in the one corner it forgot to annihilate.
Dance through the wasteland. You may as well.
There’s a plea for honesty now. Honesty and unvarnished truth, toward ourselves and others. All this relentless pushing and striving for authenticity is much like learning to sing: it’s all about holding nothing back.
I know I lose myself too easily. It used to be a goal of mine, but perhaps it has become a crutch. Hurts but I know how to hide it / kinda like it.
We don’t know what’s around the corner. No matter; I intend to keep walking, and enjoy the views along the way.
I’ve been deep-throating the universe’s lessons this past year, wading through shadow, gagging on growth. But something shifted this summer. I can smell adventures ahead, movement, air.
2023 is finally coming good.
I am so glad to be catching up on my Substack reads and not missing this. So beautiful, so authentic, so relatable. It hurts in a good way. Much love, Kaisa. Thank you for this. xx
Beautiful prose Kaisa, as always.