Have you ever felt completely worn down to your skeleton? I don’t understand how someone can emotionally torpedo through another human and live with themselves. I’m a sensitive person so this concept is foreign to me. I think it also comes with being a girl though. A couple weeks ago I noticed how calm it is in the girls locker room. Everyone looks after each other’s energy while we bathe, moisturize, put on make up, and do our hair. I’m so used to living in softness that I often forget the harshness of the outside world.
I had a similar experience while staying at a hostel in Central America. I usually assume hostels are gritty party environments and avoid them. This one left a different impression though, it was peaceful. For a night I shared a room with 5 other girls. I didn’t get a chance to meet them, but in that fleeting encounter I sensed a lightness in the space. Our stuff was neatly organized and at night we submerged into a protective silence, cradling each other’s sleep. There are too many conversations about the way girls sadistically cut each other down, but we can also kindle a womb like safety.
This was one of the perks of having a roommate. We usually spent Saturday mornings laying in our beds. I could feel my roommates energy ebbing from her room as she gazed into her phone, adjusting to the morning and filling into the emptiness of a workless day. I’m a bit of a bloodhound when it comes to energies, always sniffing for the softer, sweeter ones. A couple years ago after a break up I briefly spent time in Belize. Someone recommended swimming in the local waterfall, so I went by one morning. I was crouching on a rock near the falls when it started lightly raining. I remember looking up at the sky and feeling the rain on my face, the spray from the falls. The air was cut with a balming freshness.
I ran into a friend a few weeks ago and we spent some time talking about the realities of being a creative. I’m glad I have artist friends. Most of them are hellbent on realizing their vision, creating work that skews far from the mainstream. Sometimes their stuff gets stolen by more established artists, or they’ll pour $15,000 into publishing a book and make none of the money back. I told my friend that I want to develop more as a creative. I want to experiment with different projects and float them out into the world. I don’t know if my work will take on a life of its own, but I would like to think that the energy I bubble away in has something to offer.
“Self-actualized people have a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life with awe, pleasure, wonder, and even ecstasy, however stale these experiences may be for other people.” Abraham Maslow
Title is a CG Jung quote
a soft death 