Do you wanna talk about it or nah?
On a lighter note, I had gotten my native seeds in the mail the other day and I’m excited to plant them in warmer weather!
Congrats on your gift!!! I hope they grow big and strong.
I've gone back and forth about it. Weather or not to just go on as I had been, or if I should go back into it.
Sadly, I think I am going to dig into it.
I've often gone on lengthy posts about how Hope is a muscle, flexing it can make it grow and that it will always exist and that we all wax and wane, we all rot and that there is nothing we can do to avoid it. But a thing we don't often go into is how waxing and waning means that there is a time of inaction and being beaten, and how the longer it goes on the harder it is to feel hope again but even worse, it is harder to Act again. It's like going from a big tree only to have to start off as a seed again.
There have been moments, that I've clawed my way out of the drowning sensation of everything going on, where I was capable of dreaming and hoping but not of action.
There was even times where I thought of pushing into action, but the idea of having to maintain action made me pause and that let the rot continue.
For direct examples of the things that have beaten me down, is that in addition to watching genocide without being able to cause real change, the direction of global fascism and the violence it entails. We also locally had a teachers strike that lasted over 3 months, local elections, protests, water restrictions. I also lost my community, due to having to move to the otherside of my city and am working from complete isolation and scratch. Not knowing neighbors, not knowing systems, not even knowing where the little libraries are due to being too busy and too cold (-40 for 2 weeks straight now) All these factors made me fall apart. I've had so many breakdowns, felt like there's nothing to do but watch horrors continue. I even lost my ability to dream of a hopeful future.
If this sound like you, my sprouts, here is what you can do.
1) Rest and look away and forgive yourself. - this doesn't mean for good, this means until you can do literally anything else. Shame is the tool of the oppressed, no one else benefits from it, no one here will actually hate you for leaving for a big. They'll only have joy for your return.
2) Go back to og inspiration. I had to go back to Dear Alice and Andrewism and other video essays. It hurt even to adjust, the way that cutting back on screen time also hurts. You must pace yourself.
3) Pause and think about what you want. What do you enjoy? What pisses you off? Take down those notes and come back later when your well is deeper.
4) Look at what you can actively change, shoveling a curb nearby, a community event that would be fun to attend even if you can't get to it. Small projects. Fix some of those small things that annoyed you. Momentum will follow.
5) Track how action makes you feel. If it's posts, Journaling, collages, a collection, jacket, art. Whatever. The more physical the tracking, the better.
It will always be hard to start off as a seed again, but it's always worth it.
