to date or not to date, neglecting our hands, and being needy 🌹

post dating hiatus + single-hood reflections, the aid of analog practices in digital creations, and owning being needy.

It’s July 2018. I notice the fellow young people living in a building away. I don’t yet know that I will fall hard for the tall neighbor with glasses after a 3-week whirlwind of ‘love.’ Two weeks of radio silence later, I will stare at the toothbrush he left at mine and feel the conflict of whether throwing it out means I gave up or if it’s pathetic to still even be pondering. I don’t yet know that agreeing to ‘talk’ and giving him a piece of my mind will not make me feel better––that only I can give myself closure. And 3 months later, I don’t yet know that his ever-present sting will be the reason why I start going to therapy, and how I will one day be able to genuinely thank him for this, for teaching me that rushed love is only ever lust, and rarely ever more.

Then it’s May 2020. The world has changed. My TV is leaning against the wall as I finish the end of Midnight Gospel––a poignant, animated show that leaves me sobbing after the final episode on birth, life, and death. The tears especially flow because a month before this, we lost a very special boy. We had spent 3 magical weeks together and then lockdown began. It felt like a blossoming love. I’ll never know if that was true, and I will eventually accept that that’s okay. We barely knew each other, having exchanged only a few sweet kisses. But the heart holds the power to warp time. We enter a time vortex when we deeply connect with others––it’s how 5 hours together can fly by, and how 3 weeks of anything can be enough to impact your life.

I don’t yet know that allowing myself to experience joy while grieving isn’t a betrayal, it is how we go on living. I could be elated to finally live in my favorite neighborhood while also feeling hollow, like it’s all trivial. I don’t yet know that we never ‘finish’ grieving. The pain wanes, but we will always miss them. To feel loss means you had something to lose.

My favorite quote from Midnight Gospel’s final episode <3

Then it’s June 2022. I am getting to know Alone. She electrifies my introverted battery yet reminds me that I’m with myself, and only myself. She makes me spiral, as I scroll down through my recent texts to remind myself that I have friends. She makes me wonder what’s wrong with me for not being able to enjoy a casual fling. She helps me learn that feeling lonely while I’m alone is somehow better than feeling lonely in the presence of another.

In these new moments of true solitude, I both dance in my independence and feel the sharp pangs of loneliness: the balance of learning how to be with myself, aka self intimacy. It’s being able to cry wherever I want, whenever I want, without having to worry about explaining my tears to anyone but myself. It’s recognizing my inner-demon feelings and remembering that I’ve met them before and that they will soon leave me if I allow them to do so. It’s planning and sticking to a date to take myself out on every week and seeing that as a valid reason of why I’m busy.

“The intimacy of learning to enjoy your own company.” – @WetheUrban IG

While doing my own thing has been enlightening, I can’t deny that some of my biggest epiphanies have come about via dating others––from the duds and the fuck bois to the heartbreakers and the ones I’ll always miss and never forget. And that’s because we can’t evolve in a vacuum. When we put ourselves out there, everything we’ve learned is put into action––whether or not we embody those teachings is up to us. This overlap of how we relate to ourselves + how we relate to others is where the sweet, fertile ground of transformation exists. It is where we weed out the deep rooted behaviors that are no longer serving us, plant new healthy habits, and allow in only those that act as natural fertilizers (no pests!). It is where we receive and up-level ourselves.

I used to think it was absolutely necessary to stay single for much of your 20s. This stance was an unconscious rebellion against the people that would immediately ask me (before anything else) ‘are you seeing anyone,’ and then try to set me up with the only other single person at the party. My single-ness became a part of my identity as I kept trying to prove to people that I could be happy and single. It was triggering to be pitied because deep down I was pitying myself.

But as I began to look externally, my stance became more fluid. I’ve seen individuals stunt their own growth by making this ‘eh’ significant other the focal point of their life, and staying together out of fear they won’t find any better––these couples made me proud to be single. But I’ve also seen people flourish in their relationships, learning more about themselves than ever before and becoming better people together––these couples made me jealous. I began to question my unnecessarily loyal oath to single-hood when I saw my jealousy for what it was: a compass for what I truly wanted.

Subscribe to claim this love energy.

Up until now, my mantra had been ‘I have to be happy being alone before I get into a relationship.’ It’s been both my north star in my dating hiatus and also the main thing holding me back. It’s led to both deepened self-intimacy and also the linear thinking of ‘I need to heal in solitude before I begin dating again,’ and ‘after I read these books on attachment styles, intimate sex, and secure relationships I’ll finally be ready.’ But healing is not a destination and neither is ‘readiness.’ There are times for solitude and contracting into ourselves, and there are times for expansion and reaching outside of ourselves. After finally admitting to myself that I still yearn for love, I realized that we can be content with where we currently are while still striving for more.

As I dip my toes into dating again, I’m no longer praying to be 100% content and single, for doing so denies my honest longing to be in a loving partnership. Instead I’m praying for the things that ground me in the Now while still honoring my yearnings:

• The trust that where I am right now is where I am meant to be.

• The clarity to recognize when I am living in alignment and when I am not.

• The courage to share my raw, honest feelings when doing so feels scary.

• The fluency to communicate my needs when my people pleasing flares up.

• The balance of creating, holding, and nourishing love both in ourselves and with another, simultaneously.

Whether you are single or deeply in love or wanting to be deeply in love, get clear on your own honest prayers and start to marry these aligned states of being with embodied action. With this foundation, we can evolve in the direction of our Truths with ease. <3

“Your direction is more important than your speed. No journey is linear, trust the process.” – @still.life IG

My Hands Are Bored 💤

My hands are bored. They miss wiping the teaspoon clean from vanilla––the good, thick kind that lingers on the spoon. They miss folding damp sheet corners over a clothesline before fiddling with a clothespin to clip them down. They miss building sandcastles, the ones where you dribble liquid sand through your pinched fingers into perfect castle towers. They miss punching in the memorized combination that is your best friend’s home phone number and twirling the phone cord as you nervously talk to their dad that answered. They miss feeling and creating, not just touching.

The wind happens to be better than any iron.

My hands are bored. With thumbs that were once the evolutionary prowess that set us apart from other species, that now may only type and swipe and scroll in a full day’s time, that need PT and exercises to offset the monotony of our tech addictions. When did we stop using our hands? Probably when everything ever became available via a single touch. But touching is not the same as feeling. Typing is not the same as creating.

We mistake the speed of convenience as a miraculous thing when the real magic has always been in the slower, more analog processes. In the scenic routes that take an extra hour. In the crisp linen sheets naturally bleached from the sun. In the rearranging of stickie notes on a table until your project starts to come to life. In the handwritten letter you receive from your best friend covered in stickers with a lipstick kiss inside and a spritz of their perfume. In the things that take their time, filled with intention. Where slowness is celebrated and meandering is encouraged. Where our body is physically involved in the creation and not just our heads staring at a screen.

Confining myself to my computer is the worst thing I can do for my writing practice. Even if our work lives primarily in the digital space, we must find a way to physically embody our creating, which means we must dance between analog and digital. The rational mind cannot be the only thing involved in creation. We must include the body because it houses our divine intuition which powers our creative work.

Adding physicality to my editing process.

I feel my most creative when I am writing on random pieces of paper and doodling my ideas out and then, after all this physical creating, I go to The Screen. But when The Screen comes into play too early, writing becomes monotonous and my hands get bored.

Where can you incorporate more analog practices into your creations? I promise you it will help, because anything analog means we are taking the slower route. We are actively choosing to take our time, which, in this hyper-productive, immediate-gratification world we live in, has become a radical choice. Hurrying and short cuts are out. Living slowly and using our hands to physically create, even for a digital medium, is in. Your hands are probably bored. Slow down and go give them some love.

You Are Not Needy, You Just Have Needs ✌️

When you own your needs, you are not being needy. My therapist told me this after one of my classic moments of “they don’t text me that consistently and it makes me anxious, I feel like I’m initiating too much but I feel weird saying something.” This, untouched, is a source of anxiety that, by not owning up to it, festers into a much bigger problem than it needs be.

When we reframe this frustration into a need that isn’t being met, we reclaim our sanity, respect ourselves, and take responsibility by telling others how we want to be treated. When we are upfront and straightforward with what we need, we are simply stating, “this is what I need in order to feel properly loved, lmk if you can do that, if not see ya later.” Here’s my example below:

1. Internal Frustration: They don’t text me that much. They aren’t initiating as much as I am. Am I being too needy?

2. ~ Transformation ~

3. Communicated Need: I would really appreciate more consistent* communication, it helps me feel more secure as I’ve been (blind-sighted) ghosted in the past and am still working through it.

   • *Note: If your boo is scared from the word “consistency,” remind them that consistency is not commitment. Consistency gently demands respect and being treated right regardless of your relationship status. Commitment is an entirely different conversation.

The results? In my dating experiences, stating my needs would either 1) strengthen the relationship or 2) scare off the boo. If sharing your emotional needs is a turn off for your boo, I don’t think you’re with the right boo. Sharing your needs early on and seeing their reaction is a fantastic way to quickly assess their comfort levels around emotional communication (and is a great vetting tactic). xoxo

3 Quotes 💡

Melissa Febos, author of Body Work:

“Part of learning to receive things is learning to do so when you haven’t even asked for them. [Intimacy], I’ve found, has little to do with romance...It is not watching lightning strike from the window but being struck by it.”

Unknown:

“Where on your body feels like home?”

Frank Ocean in ‘Godspeed:’

“Silence in the ears, darkness of the mind.”

With love,

Kristen 🐌 🌻