Turns out, telling your truth in the moment clears out so much space.

Truth really does go moment by moment. Just because something feels like the truth today doesn’t mean it will feel like the truth tomorrow. This is really important for me to remember.

While I was embarrassed about sharing all those Disenfranchised Dreams last night, I’m so glad I did - and not just because people are so dang kind. I feel so much more hopeful today.

Being an empath who’s still learning good boundaries is like having to vacuum up after the world, because half of it just tramped muddy footprints through your kitchen as it tossed used sandwich wrappers on the floor.

I spend a lot of my time clearing space.

(“Clearing space” is my vaguely obnoxious term for shuffling through all the emotions and feelings and thoughts that I pick up from other people and finding room in my head for me.)

Anyway, saying "HI I’M SO SAD THAT NONE OF THIS HAS HAPPENED, ALSO A BIT HUMILIATED, LIKE IT SAYS SOMETHING ABOUT HOW UNWORTHY I AM (it doesn’t) AND LIKE PEOPLE WILL JUDGE ME (you won’t) FOR IT"… is actually a huge goddamn relief.

Because saying the sticky painful things without staying in the painful sticky things is so crucial for me. Me, the relentless queen of cantankerous melodrama.

Here was my Blab All Over The Internet process for feeling better about disenchanted dreams, if you're curious:

Think a thing about hopeless dreams, start writing the thing, keep writing the thing because it helps me understand my feelings about the thing.
Feel vaguely queasy but share the thing anyway.
Read kind things and let them soothe me to sleep, hand clutching the phone precisely the way you're not supposed to do.
Get out of bed the next morning, pretend to exercise (hand up if this is a thing you do), and realize “Hey, that doesn’t feel so much like my truth anymore.”
Sure, I’m almost forty and that baby thing feels a little pressing (which means the relationship and the money thing definitely feels pressing), but all that could shift tomorrow.
Or not. It doesn't matter.
Realize that stating my truth in the moment cleared space in my head, heart, and feels. Enough to realize that it was just that moment. I'm not even 40 yet. My life is not over.
Maybe I just need to do my thing and enjoy all the many things there are to enjoy in the everyday.

Being careful to distinguish my own feelings and energy and thoughts from whatever I just picked up at the grocery store from random strangers or when on the phone with a friend is an ongoing process - and crucial to dreams.

More than that, clearing out my own space has the unintended but welcome effect of making some goddamn room for joy. I feel joy so much more powerfully than I did a few years ago.

Joy is a pretty good trade for dreams. So maybe I should just surrender to that and let my dreams do whatever the fuck they want to do. They can tag along, they can fall into the abyss, they can tap me on the shoulder. Whatever.

You do you, dreams. I’ll do me. Maybe we’ll meet again sometime.

In the meantime, there are so many things that make me happy. Make my wizened little soul feel joy.

Giraffes. Cartwheels on beaches. Road trips with Sally. Toasted rice tea. Dance class. Wearing my unicorn horn. My little cottage. My hippie weird. Giraffes.

If you want to share some of the things that make you happy, I would love that.