field notes: the truth about growth & change

This is definitely the worst news that I have learned on my growing journey

Now that my health has improved (I, too, acquired the big flu of January 2025), my new home is finally unpacked, and I have officially settled in to my new spot, I have decided that I am finally ready to begin my “new year”. Although I began at the mid/end of February, what matters most of course is that I started at all. However, this new growth journey is much different than my prior ones.

I don’t know if it’s the prefrontal cortex development, or maybe my brain chemistry shifted after the shitshow that was 2024, but growth in this current stage of my life is actually consisting of pains. This is the first time in my life that I have experienced “growing pains”, and I now understand the true meaning of the phrase.

It’s like when you’re a kid and your favorite pair of shoes suddenly pinch your toes due to your body rapidly growing and developing into its teenage form, resulting in you having no choice but to get new shoes. Sure, you can keep those outgrown shoes in a corner of your room so that you can admire a style you once donned, but after a while you realize that you had to get new shoes anyway, and that those old shoes are never going to fit you again.

(this is not about shoes, however I did go through this exact thing when I was a kid and it did suck. if you’re curious, it was about these shoes right here. this is the only set of photos I could find of them, but if anyone is able to find more lmk!)

I have gotten to this point with my growth in which I’m realizing that everything that I want to have or experience in life is on the other side of many of the habits and tendencies that I currently exhibit, and it fuckin’ sucks.

If I want to write that book, I simply have to live life differently than the me of yesterday who does not have the habits or discipline necessary to write that book. If I want to stay healthy as I continue to age (I am already beginning to feel it in my knees. Yes, I’m freaking out about it), I simply have to live life differently than the me of yesterday who phones in working out every time I begin to show results. If I want cool experiences and opportunities, I simply have to live life differently than the me of yesterday who played smaller and safer. If I want to make a living “existing”, I simply have to live life different than the me of yesterday who feels like everyone else deserves to live big, grandiose lives doing whatever they want, while I am only to do what is traditional (and thus what doesn’t work for me), practical, and common. The life that I desire quite literally requires me to change on a fundamental, cellular level that I am witnessing the progress of every single day.

This shit is really fuckin’ me up man.

When I first brought up these revelations of how I have to push myself outside of the comfort zones in every aspect of my life to my therapist, she looked at me with a concern that I had never seen her face me with before. It then occurred to me that this was the first time in our several years’ relationship that I had truly exhibited anxiety. I am typically such a confident person. On first glance I know that I appear confident. I dress confidently, I stand tall, I speak to others confidently, I write authentically, and so on. For all intents and purposes, I am a “confident” person. However, what these growing pains have taught me is that I am not confident in the parts of my being that would propel me towards the life that I want to live.

I think I got comfortable in all of these ways in which I show up in life (which is already quite a lot, especially considering my lovely history of traumas and such), and couldn’t see the ways in which I was holding myself back by sticking to those habits in lieu of adopting new ones that would accelerate me towards my desires. The issue, though, is that I am at a point in life where the adoption of new positive habits would forcibly take me out of my current goalpost of surviving, and take me towards a brand new frontier: thriving.

For me, this is mortifying.

Thriving asks of true vulnerability and authenticity. Thriving requires of you to have an ironclad discipline towards the acquisition of your desires. Thriving means being the absolute fullest extension of yourself (something that I believed I was doing, but have now come to realize that I was far from doing).

I have spent all 27 years of my life surviving. It’s something that I believe that I’m truly a master at. In a way, it’s like I’ve achieved the maximum level on the Game of Surviving Life, and there’s literally no more game to play. There’s no endgame, there’s no new game +, there’s no DLC, nothing. I can continue running around the map in circles, maybe continue to live the same-old-same-old quests and journeys, but it will never progress me further than where I am now.

In the end, I have to take out the cartridge and load in an entirely new game: The Game of Thriving Throughout Life.

It is truly uncharted territory for me, and as I spoke about this in therapy, my therapist fed me with so many affirmations and compliments on the progress I’ve done thus far with this whole growth journey that I knew that she knew that I was freaking the hell out.

The worst part of it all? I know good and well that I can never go back. It’s like this deep inner knowing that the “shoes” of my past literally don’t fit, so unless I want to wear them and hobble around uncomfortably, I quite literally have to make a change. I have to get new shoes.

It makes me feel like I’m being kicked out in a way, but instead of me being kicked out and lost, I have a path available for me to traverse in the meantime. It’s dark and uncertain, but I either travel this path or bang on the door for a life that I cannot fit into any longer.

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When I talk to my girls (hey gworls~) it makes this sensation even worse.

One of my girls just got an incredible artist residency opportunity that would allow her to be connected with incredible artists in the city, a whole group show opportunity, and also she’ll have a cozy, dedicated space to commit to her furthering her craft. Another one of my girls has been so irritated and frustrated with her current job that I just know that she’s on the cusp of leaving them in the dust to pursue something that rightfully pays much more for the labor that she puts into her career responsibilities (she doesn’t know it yet, but I manifest this for her constantly). A wellness girlie of mine finally attained a recurring weekly (and sometimes multiple times a week) venue for her sound bowl meditations, allowing her a beautiful and crisp atmosphere for her healing arts. A girlie who I have been less connected with these few months came to me and mentioned that she’s starting a whole journaling series at a cozy, local, bookstore bar (which is so cool might I add!!). Another girlie just won a grant (!!!) to pursue her desire to spread knowledge about cybersecurity to the general public so that they can be more protected during their digital adventures!

At the same time, I am being showered by the people on my friends list with so much love and genuineness. I’m being invited to things I am actually interested in—which of course requires people to understand me—meaning that I am finally being understood. I am finally feeling like I fit in somewhere on this planet, and the feeling is so overwhelming.

The love, bravery, and positivity beamed from all of these individuals however comes with a distinct choice that I have to continuously make. Do I choose to move forward with them, or do I choose to go back to where things feel comfortable and safe? Do I put a magnifying glass on my most authentic self and continue to share her with the girls (and the world!), or do I pinch and shrink her until she is tucked under the folds of what could have been?

Obviously the wise answer is to continue to move forward, even if all of my friends have to drag me there whilst I kick and scream of course. But it’s all still so awfully terrifying and feels so nauseating. It’s even nauseating to imagine that all of the things I desire are simply within the grasp of the choices that I choose today, and tomorrow, and then the next day, and then the day after that. It is, and always has been, that simple. As long as I keep making the choice and moving towards what I desire, it will all end up working out for my higher good regardless. All I have to do is continue to do the work. The hard, hard, work. No matter how much it hurts me.

What terrible news.