I was supposed to arrive here last night.

I had booked three nights. At a luxury hotel, quite close to my apartment in Vancouver.

Jordan and I have been doing this during Covid to have space from one another. There is much to say about the benefits of solo hotel stays; I might make a video about that tomorrow.

I was supposed to check in around 3 pm.

It passed 3, then 4, then 5. And I was still home, dilly-dallying, taking my time, being incredibly slow about leaving our apartment.

Hotels are one of my favorite places in the entire world. Transient places, places that take the shape of what you need them to be, a blank canvas for you to paint your emotional reality.

But at some point last night I had to ask myself why I was resisting leaving so much.

I have this pattern. Where when I agree to do something but secretly do not want to do it I will slow. way. down and end up making everything late.

It always feels like I am in the middle of a heavy cloud, dragging it along with me.

Sometimes I do not recognize this pattern until it is too late. Most of my life I have not recognized it at all.

But I am getting better at it now, at noticing it while it is occurring.

When I am in the midst of this pattern it is very tricky. It has a lot of ways to cover itself, smart ideas to hide inside.

Last night the truth was that I did not want to come to the hotel.

I was tired, I wanted to lay in my own bed and sleep, I wanted to cuddle with Jordan when he was done with men’s group, and I did not want to go through the effort of making my way to the hotel.

Those were reasons – but really it didn’t matter why. The truth was that I didn’t want to come. I wanted to sleep in my bed and then see about checking in in the morning.

The reason this was so hidden is because my mind REALLY DID NOT LIKE IT.

My mind said:

“I paid a lot of money for the hotel.”

“Who pays for a hotel and then doesn’t use it?”

“Last week I wanted sooo much space. Now I have the opportunity for extra space and I am not taking it?”

“Maybe I’m just bad at taking care of myself and I want to stay home because I want to feel taken care of.”

“Maybe I’m afraid of being lonely at the hotel.”

“I thought I loved hotels so much. Who even am I anymore?”

Etc.

I feel truth deep in my body. When something is not the truth, it feels like it is floating up above my heart, near my head, like I am grasping for it and would like it to be true, but it’s not.

When something is the truth it lands, solidly, hard. But when something is the truth and I don’t want it to be the truth it gets extra sneaky. It hits for just a split second, quick enough that I could miss it if I wasn’t so practiced at it.

All these sentences, floating up above.

The truth, that I didn’t want to go.

This is a small example, and this happens in every area of life.

Sometimes people think I just do whatever I want all the time.

That is a misunderstanding of what I do.

I follow what is true. Sometimes the truth is what I desire. Sometimes (and most often) my desires are not the things I think I actually want.

A big piece of my identity has been how much I love being independent and traveling and doing things alone.

This piece of me has been continuously challenged in my relationship with Jordan.

Because my mind would like to think that I never need him around and I am totally great without him.

But the truth is that I do need him.

That doesn’t mean that if something happened to him I would never survive or be okay. But it does mean that sometimes when my Miss Independent streak wants to take over that the truth is that I actually need to be held.

So I stayed home. And I laid in bed, and when Jordan came to bed I stayed up with him talking for hours, and then we fell asleep and this morning I came to the hotel.

And I took a 10 am bath, where I am sitting right now. In this bathtub that would fit three of me, next to my bed and overlooking the city.

My blood arrived as soon as I arrived. A little dark spot, letting me know that it is coming. She is a little bit early.

 

***

(written after taking a nap)

 

No more trying to “get” places.

No more trying to make millions of dollars

No more trying to have the perfect sculpted body.

No more trying to create an image
To be perceived in the correct way
To be understood.

It’s all been dying

This morning I caught sight of my butt in the mirror
and the first thing I felt was a deep sense of adoration for my body
about the way it has been changing since I stopped lifting.
Jiggly. Rounder. It shakes more, now that there is not so much muscle.
Last year I would have winced at the cellulite.
The first thing I thought today was “oh wow, I look like a woman.”

I have been thinking about this. Noticing my eye wrinkles and wondering when my first gray hairs will come in.
I know I will let them.
I have been wondering about why we do not celebrate the shifting of our bodies
and why instead we try to cling to youth.
It has been a long process of shifting myself away. First in my teen years, away from magazines. And then in my twenties, away from fitness culture.

What I desire most right now is to grow my own food on land. To eat eggs from chickens that I know. To surround my own home in flowers and lace and soft things. To drink a lot of tea. To have a bird feeder and watch the birds. To wear long dresses and skirts. To nourish my uterus so deeply, to bleed and rest. To cook a lot of meals, to touch each fruit and vegetable as if it were the biggest gift – because it is. To have slow soft sex with Jordan. To open, fully, in all areas, when it is time.

To let my breasts wrinkle and my butt sink and soften and my belly expand and to have my eyes pierce through it all. Becoming more like a tree.

To hold women coming down into my groups and to let the magic come through. Unblocked, unbroken, uninhibited.
To let the earth come through.

Not to get me anything.
Just to be in service to Her.

I bought retinol cream the other day – not from a place of fixing but because it seemed fun and like the thing to do, as you get older. And then I decided to return it

These pieces of me have been dying and I think they have died.

It has been a lot of things and now it is the energy of DIRT (my latest program), coming through.

Wet. Gentle. The soft pulling apart.
A reintroduction into living.
A deep body-pressed-to-earth feeling.
The fierce howl of the wind and the sun gazing through the trees.

All in my body. All in your body.

A deeper pulse. Of saying here we are, here.

I have found a place of opening so deeply to this present moment that the whole world unfolds in an instant.

Sheets on legs. A sip of coffee. Wet dirt under fingernails. The peeling of an orange.

The knowing of what is true in every moment

The being at home in each emotion.

It ends up appearing almost the same as what I described earlier.

But it is not.

One is a forced way of trying to get somewhere, to be something.

One is the allowing of what wants to be.

Getting on the ride and surrendering.

Listening to my body.

My body with its swirls and waves and lines and softness.

Listening even deeper than that, to Her.

To the wisdom of life.

Trusting that life knows better than me, and I’m just along for the ride.

 

***

 

I am back in the tub.

I ordered dinner two times tonight.

The first was pasta that I had delivered to the hotel, where I thought I was ordering smoked salmon but it came cooked and made everything taste and smell awful, so I could not eat it.

So I ordered from room service. Which meant that the same man who had already come to my door three times had to come again.

I really notice these areas where receiving is hard for me. There was a moment earlier when my pasta came and I realized I needed a fork, but he had already brought me things twice (more nespresso cups and then had to go get the correct ones, when the messenger had not conveyed I needed decaf).

It was an edge to say hey, I know you just went back and forth a bunch of times but could you do it again? And for a moment I considered eating pasta with my hands, just so that I didn’t have to feel the sensation of asking.

That’s something I almost always notice in the moment now. I feel the twinge in my body, and it is a signal to me – this means I must ask. To expand my edge of receiving.

People don’t always like that. One time I told people on social media that a way I practiced saying no was by allowing myself to change my mind whenever I wanted to – in particular, a time I had put together a whole hot meal from Whole Foods and then realized at the register that I didn’t want it at all. So at the last second I said, actually, I don’t want this.

I got a lot of comments that were like “that’s such a waste omg” and I get that – and it is in moments like that when I like to practice pushing my edge. Yes, the most ideal thing would have been to listen to my body ahead of time and not waste the food. And also, it’s a huge lesson to be able to say no when you realize your body is a no.

Think of how many women order something in a restaurant, and when it comes out wrong, they say it’s fine, don’t worry about it, and they eat what they didn’t want anyway.

Think of how many women get into bed with a man and say they want to have sex and then at the last minute they realize their bodies don’t really want it but they feel like they’ve already acted like they did so they have to.

 

I am also a big fan of giving myself 100% of what I want.

I was telling a friend the other day about the time I spent $5k on clothes.

It was right before I moved to Vancouver to be with Jordan. Really it was $4k on clothes and then an extra thousand to import it all into Canada. I bought them and shipped them all directly to his house.

There had been a moment when I decided I needed new clothes that matched who I was, who I was becoming. So I went online shopping, and I decided to fill up my cart with every single thing I wanted.

Every. Single. Thing.

No exceptions.

I wanted to know what it felt like to add all of it.

And I added all of it and it said $4,000. And for a minute I thought…. well maybe $3k is more reasonable. I don’t need all these things. I’ll take them out.

I removed a $200 see-through nightgown. That’s not practical, right? I probably would barely even wear it. I couldn’t wear it out in public.

I removed another see-through nightgown, this one with sequins.

I removed a pair of black lacy stockings.

The cart had dropped $500… and my excitement had dropped 99%.

I didn’t want any of it if I couldn’t have everything.

And I realized what I was doing to myself. Telling myself I couldn’t have everything, telling myself it was too much, I didn’t need that much, I shouldn’t have that much.

The reality was that spending an extra thousand dollars on clothes is really not a big deal when you’ve already decided to spend $3k.

But the difference in my joy was everything.

I added them back and I bought it all.

And I have enjoyed those nightgowns more than anything else in my closet.

A similar thing happened on Valentine’s Day, with the bouquet Jordan bought me.

Tightness around desire does not work.

Whenever I notice myself wanting to be tight – like telling myself I already ordered one meal and so I should just make myself eat it even though I hate it so it isn’t wasted – I catch it and I open.

Tonight I ordered two more.

Interestingly it was the same thing that brought me Jordan.

We started dating only a few weeks after I had decided: Everything I wanted in a partner, or nothing at all.

Paying for the hotel and getting to sleep at home and come to the hotel when I felt like it.

Letting myself have all of it.

 

If you liked this piece, you might also enjoy:

– Every relationship has a lesson. What lesson do you want to be learning?

– Feeling & naming your full desire: Jordan pays for our lives & this is what that looks like

– How I got over my breakup in 3 weeks

– 10 things I’ve learned about money that may surprise, disgust, & delight you

– Taking responsibility for your desire