Feeling: Fear
The process of reclaiming a dream is scary.
Happy New Year!
Feeling! Magazine is here to stay in 2024. This is the year I give it even more of me. I love writing. I love the pace and this space. I hope you do too.
I wanted to share life-enhancing things I’ve recently found so you can start your year with a good list of happy suggestions.
Julia! on HBO Max. I started watching Julia, a show about Julia Child, on Max and am smitten. It has a sweet rhythm and has been exactly what I need to accompany quiet evenings. Her husband is played by David Hyde Pierce (Niles Crane from Fraiser). I had no idea Julia and her husband had such an incredible marriage and creative partnership. It is the sweetest element of the show to me and I got tears in my eyes a few times just from watching them interact.
Single’s Inferno. In college, my roommates and I would gather around the TV and watch The Bachelor and scream and predict things and laugh until we cried. I was the first to get married, and when I did, I realized the Bachelor experience was only fun to me when it was accompanied by the utter silliness only large masses of college friends in a dorm could give. It bored me in my own home. I thought my days of reality dating shows were over…but alas…Netflix hath provided. Connor has been learning Korean and suggested we try a reality Korean show so he can practice/observe the language. We gave Single’s Inferno a shot. Now were are both invested like it is a sport. It’s so substantially more wholesome than any other dating show I’ve watched that we shout and cheer when a couple holds hands. It’s a blast. I had bronchitis over the holiday and we couched-up and consumed it.
My bedtime read right now is The Mystery Guest and it is marvelous.
Dedcool’s Milk room spray is it for me. I received it as a Christmas gift from my mom, and I am enamored. I know buying fragrance online is risky, but count this as an enthusiastic review. I want to drench everything in it. It’s clean — not floral or really musky or strong — it’s so light and fresh. I want to crawl inside it. It’s like I found my fragrance soul mate. I think you’ll probably like it too.
A note on fear:
I did something really scary. I made an art print collection and released it online. I took myself seriously…designing for weeks, taking product photos, etc. This may seem standard for a designer, but it was layered deeper than the act of doing it.
I used to release art prints monthly, I had a flourishing brick-and-mortar store in my downtown district and online store. I had 10 employees to cover the influx of customers and fulfill orders online. And then I watched it light on fire and die in front of me.
It started with a COVID shutdown, rolled into contract issues, building renovations, damaged property, financial strain, reduced hours, friendly faces turning sour, a horrific accident of a dear friend, the death of a family member, and then the most physically tangible anxiety I’ve ever faced. At some point, finding myself in an empty bathtub sobbing for hours under a blanket, it occurred to me that I only lived one time and this wasn’t quite what I had envisioned for myself.
I felt so relieved to admit I wanted it all to stop. Admitting something like that is so difficult when you are in so deep — like 5,000 pages deep, leases, taxes, bet your life on it kind of deep.
After the admittance was a relief and simultaneously the most intense anxiety yet. Because I felt like I got defeated and smashed up with people watching. And I had to admit it. In my kindness as a 25-year-old, I can look at my 22-year-old self with compassion and tell her most everything was unpreventable, unprecedented, and it wasn’t all my fault. Businesses open for 10 or 20 years were smashed to bits after COVID too. But I didn’t have that perspective. At 22 I decided it was over for me. I had failed. If I knew more, did more, had more, etc., etc., etc., I could have survived it all.
Since then, anything remotely similar to owning the store has made me run in the opposite direction.
I did extensive therapy.
I felt like I had the same conversation with Connor 200,000 times about being afraid and feeling stuck.
I rallied friends.
I felt hopeful and then lost the sparkle again.
And then repeated all the above a few times.
But last week I finally went back to the belly of the beast. I made an art collection and released it for everyone to see and stare at and it was a bit nauseating.
So 2024 has started with a massive dose of bravery that took some years to muster. And now…anticipation for what is next.
Dear reader, wherever you are and whatever battle you are waging — I hope that this year is one of reclaiming what was yours that you may have lost.
That the dreams you put down will come back to you.
That hope will come back too.
That you can take a step in bravery, whatever that may look like for you. Whether that’s a phone call, quitting something, changing something, or drawing a lobster like me.
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