Shadow work journal
A Journal Entry: On Basements, Dreams, and Permission
My studio is in the basement. It’s functional. It’s where I create art and run my design business. It works. But it isn’t the "dream."
What does the dream studio have that this one doesn’t? Is it just light? Bigger windows? Space for a coffee bar? Or is it permission? And who am I waiting for to grant me that permission?
When I picture "making it," I see a timeline: When I’m fully my own boss, then I’ll have the sunlit studio, the beautiful house, the coffee bar. Then I’ll be happy.
But I am my own boss. I am living entirely from my creative skills. I have a partner I adore. We explore the city, we thrift, we try new restaurants—this is the lifestyle I dreamed of. The substance and the emotion are here. So why do I look at my basement and feel it's "not good enough"? Why does the missing window feel like a failure, rather than just a quirk of my current apartment?
I think I’ve found the disconnect. The outside looks a little different than I pictured, but the life inside is the one I wanted. So why can’t I let myself be satisfied?
I am scared to be fully happy.
To be happy means to be open. To be open means to be vulnerable. And vulnerability has, in the past, meant devastation.
It started at 15, with that first heartbreak—the screaming, the tears, the methodical destruction of a favorite comic book, page by page, because he abandoned me. I vowed never to feel that out of control again.
So I built a fort. I went to college "cool and collected." I turned away interest, especially from those who scared me with their potential to make me feel. I even turned away the same ex, repeatedly, because I could not forgive, could not trust, could not believe he saw me.
Then came the navigation of a landscape littered with sexism, harassment, and coercion. A former ex who saw me only as a sexual conquest. Another who diminished my worth for seven years. In each, the lesson was reinforced: to love is to risk being blindsided, used, and heartbroken.
But I said no. I got up. I left. I walked alone, with my mother’s voice as my compass: "Keep moving forward."
I have moved forward. I have built a life with a loving partner. I have traveled to Japan. I have a career born from my passion. The dream, in its essence, is here.
Yet, a part of me is waiting for the other shoe to drop. If I fully relax into this joy, I might be blind-sided again. Maybe this life is too good to be true. Maybe I don’t deserve it.
So I hustle. I work like there’s a fire under me. I maintain control by constantly doing, ensuring I can never lose what I’ve built. The basement studio isn't the dream because, subconsciously, I haven’t allowed myself to arrive. If I install the coffee bar in the sunlit room, that’s it—I’ve won. And what happens after you win? You become a target for loss.
The permission I’m waiting for isn’t about square footage or natural light. It’s the permission from my own wounded self to trust my present. To believe that the past pain is not a prophecy, but a history I survived. That the safe love I have now is different. That the stability I’ve created is real.
The dream studio isn’t a place I get to when everything is perfect. It’s a place I create when I decide that what I have, who I am, and who I love is already enough to begin celebrating.
The permission slip has my name on it. I am the only one who can sign it.
Maybe the first step isn’t a new studio. Maybe it’s buying the nice coffee maker for the kitchen I have now, and drinking from it in the basement, sunlight or not, as an act of faith—a small ritual to prove to myself that I am allowed to enjoy the dream while I’m living it, not just after I’ve finished it.
