Whose Timeline is it Anyway?
Damn, what a year.
For me personally (and seemingly lots of people on here which has been sort of cathartic) it was one of those phases in life where I have definitely learned a lot, but I’m exhausted now.
There’s definitely a lot to complain about, and I have both in person and on here already. I want to take some time before this year is over and show some gratitude as I 2025 year on its way.
The biggest lesson I finally internalized this year is how much the truth can set you free, and that running from the truth just runs you into the ground. I began to accept some hard truths about myself and life; as scary as each truth was to hold I feel lighter having released them.
I was diagnosed with both epilepsy towards the beginning of this year and FND towards the end. An important truth to embrace, but it has definitely turned my life upside down. Some sort of new normal is beginning to take shape though and it feels closer to stability than I’ve ever managed.
My Epilepsy Family rallied around me in a dark and confusing (literally) time and have genuinely restored a bit of my faith in humanity. Teaching youth while taking my epilepsy diagnosis in stride provided me with a levity I could not have achieved on my own. My husband and I have always been thick as thieves and have already seen one another through all sorts of adversity, but this year brought us back into focus for one another in a way I cannot describe quite yet. Not to mention all the people I had lost touch with throughout the years that have reached out since my diagnosis; that has been such a beautiful, eye-opening part of the year for me.
What started as a very lonely period for me became a time for me to rediscover old interests, holistically focus on my health instead of ignoring every aspect of it, and reprioritize.
This year I have experienced intense loss – of family members very dear to me, of friends unable to show up when I needed it most, of my own agency – but it has been matched by the love and insight I have gained. There were several moments this year that would definitely not make the greatest hits list. In fact they would probably make some sort of “biggest vengeful dickhead moves” list and I can admit that. To be fair to me, I have been going through a lot and not within the full faculty of my mind. But as a person who placed much of their own value on being useful, dependable, even keel. . . It felt shameful to act “out of line”.
There were, of course, some people who did shame me for not living up to the unrealistic expectations I’d been holding myself to for way too long. But I have also received more compassion and understanding this year than I’ve probably opened myself up to for the 28 years prior. I can feel wounds that are borderline ancestral in nature healing within me, and truly all of the discomfort I have been weighed down by this year pales in comparison from that sort of internal freedom.
✦ ✧ ✦
This time of year is very paradoxical to me because, I dunno, spring feels like a much more natural beginning. But, I love when such a huge majority of us human beings are all riding the same wavelength, that’s amazing. It’s beautiful to imagine the world supercharged by everyone dreaming about the future across the globe. So, I do my best to ride the wave and spend some time reflecting and coming up with enigmatic goals that are basically just vibes in a tie. Here are mine for 2026:
- Both feet planted firmly in The Physical World
- Slow down enough to hear myself think
- Realign spiritual practice with the lunar cycle
- Embrace a posthumous artist mindset
The first two are pretty self explanatory, the third is too vague and personal to get into, but the fourth has really been sitting with me.
I’ve spent a lot of time over the last several years having an existential crisis about what it means to be an artist in this modern era we live in. Over and over again I’ve realized social media isn’t for me. Maybe it’s all the ways it’s built to be divisive, or addictive. Maybe it’s because both my epilepsy and FND are triggered by strong emotional reactions. Maybe it’s how impossible it feels to hit something like flow state on traditional social media. It’s probably a lot of things, and again I know a lot of people are feeling this way more and more recently.
At the same time I feel so shackled to it if I want to have any chance of succeeding as an artist, whatever that means. Finding Bear and creating my own site has been such a joy (which I have discussed at length already). At points I worried about it being difficult to grow an audience on here, forgetting that the whole point was for this to be something else entirely. I’d get too in my own head and stall my own process just like I constantly was on Instagram.
One day while pondering this all something sort of silly came to me: maybe all these Posthumous Artists actually had it figured out. Perhaps we, trapped in hustle culture, saw tragedy where we could be seeing dedication.
Of course it’s not quite as simple as that, but the idea really stuck with me. Traditional social media triggers a fear of failure I need to address before it can be a useful tool. Past that, how much is playing the numbers game actually robbing me from growth and learning? Even as I began to have some idea of what “worked” on Instagram, it almost always caused huge stops and starts in my practice. What ways could I begin to reconsider my time to put the emphasis back into the act of creation itself?
To me, the Posthumous Artist mindset means remembering that I am the only person who can create what is in my heart, and dedicating myself to my craft and having faith it will reach those it’s meant to through the love I have put into and the power of the universe.
Have a blessed and balanced New Year!