Since I began this blog at the end of June 2023, I think I’ve skipped exactly two weeks. Other than that, I have been posting every Tuesday at least for almost nine months, and sometimes more often – sometimes (I am sorry to my subscribers) – as many as three times per week. It was something to pour my heart into, something to mark time. I love writing here. I’m grateful for everyone who sometimes reads.
Things are changing now though, aren’t they?
You can feel it too, I’m sure. Things are getting lighter and faster, and beginning to take shape in unexpected ways. Energetically, it’s very hard to believe I’m the same person who began this blog. I’ve exploded and imploded countless ways since then. I’ve died approximately 13 deaths.
Some of that I think you’ve been able to see in real time. I have tried to show up on the page no matter what I’m feeling, tried to turn my experience into something meaningful for myself and maybe something helpful or at least relevant for you - helpful the way that all my favourite authors have been for me, when they let me into the dark corners of their minds.
Last week required me to focus so completely on a couple things that I decided not to force myself to create in this way. I didn’t even water my plants, and I’m very sad to say I might have killed one. Those who know me know that, despite how mundane a dead plant seems, it’s one of the most sure-fire signs that I really have transformed as a person. Old Alana would never ever.
I’m not going to stop writing here.
I’m not sure what it will look like yet. I don’t feel done with this.
Over the time I’ve been writing here, I’ve been pushing myself as an artist in every way that presents itself to me. I’ve begun reading my poetry at open mics and I’ve even stopped feeling lightheaded when I do so. I’ve begun to immerse myself back in photography in different ways, in ways that feel bigger and braver than I allowed myself in my 20s. I’ve revised a manuscript and started three more. I’ve begun to take the dancing I do at home very seriously, which is to say that if I feel like doing it, everything can stop for five minutes. I’ve begun collecting sea glass, digging my hands through wet beach rocks like I’m a little kid again.
Consistency means more than ever in some ways.
I’m writing at least 1,500 words of fiction a day – by hand. I never could have predicted it. I go to barre class to work my muscles as hard as I work my mind. I text everyone back as much as I can. I let myself sit down and do nothing.
Consistency is starting to disintegrate in other ways, though. I don’t make myself take walks every day, even though I live in a place where I can. I let myself curl into myself on the couch with lit candles and simmer in the pretty misery of winter. I spend entire days angry, even as I listen to all the spiritual channellers talk about how important a positive mindset is. I figure I can always try again tomorrow. I can easily subsist on a loaf of bread and a container of cream cheese. And yogurt.
Lately, it’s kind of a spaghetti-on-the-wall situation. Some things stick, and some don’t. I’m not nearly as worried about it as I used to be. Some of the things I’ve always been most scared of have happened, and that means I’m free and nothing can hurt me anymore. I’m not about to get upset that I left dishes in the sink too long. I’m way more comfortable with hitting the block button. I’m much more open to disaster, chaos, and hard stops.
When you wake up and decide you’re going to do what you need to do, there’s no need for discipline, or check marks on a to-do list. This kind of abstract completion used to be my main reason for doing anything. I enjoyed the way my workout sheet filled up over time more than I enjoyed pulling deadlifts. Numbers can be comforting. They just seem so real.
Living from your heart is something different. It’s knowing that you’ll keep writing even though there might be no one reading. I saw a video a while ago that made me sob. Eli Rallo is on her well-deserved book tour and she basically says that she has no idea what she is doing, that she is still faking it in some regards but: “I would rather be dead than not do this.” That’s all this is about. I would rather be dead than not write. I would rather be dead than not be who I am. It makes everything so simple.
It makes life easy even when it’s unbelievably hard.
I had dinner with a new friend recently and we were talking about how important hard things are, how funny it is that people resist their hardships when they’re the best things that will ever happen to you. They show you that you are unfuckwithable, that failure is inevitable, but success is always an option.
Consistency is what will get me the agent and the book deal. It’s what will enable me to handle those things when they happen. But you can only keep going with things you love. Without that, consistency will do nothing but burn you out. It will just be an energy sink, a place to distract yourself while you ignore the things you do want to do.
To be honest is scary until you do it. Then you realize that it was just you underneath all of it. Just someone you know better than anything in this world. No boogie men. No demons. No monsters.