{"id":12250,"date":"2017-06-30T16:45:44","date_gmt":"2017-06-30T08:45:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/?p=12250"},"modified":"2017-06-30T16:45:44","modified_gmt":"2017-06-30T08:45:44","slug":"june-2017-status-update-vomit-0684","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/2017\/06\/30\/june-2017-status-update-vomit-0684\/","title":{"rendered":"June 2017 status update [vomit 0684]"},"content":{"rendered":"

(I wrote this in June 2017, while I was on reservist)<\/a><\/p>\n

Dear Visa,<\/p>\n

How are you? It\u2019s me, your oldest friend, who\u2019s always been here for you, who knows you by heart. We haven\u2019t had a lot of time for each other lately \u2013 and that\u2019s okay, life is hard. You have a lot on your plate. I\u2019m proud of you for achieving all that you have. You\u2019ve grown into a decent young man, considering your messy past. And I truly believe that you\u2019re only going to keep growing and learning and doing justice to this strange opportunity you\u2019ve been given called life.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re 27 years old now. Decisively, resolutely a man, no longer a boy. Isn\u2019t that quite something? So much of our memories are of our boyhood. School and video games and music and girls. And now here you are, married, a homeowner, solidly employed for a full four years and counting.<\/p>\n

Remember how that felt? 2013. Your life had changed so radically. You were no longer the center of your own life \u2013 now you had a spouse to think about, too. You had bills to pay. You had to start doing chores and make bigger decisions. Next, you\u2019re going to be buying insurance, planning holidays, organising house parties for friends and loved ones.<\/p>\n

I need you to know that you need to take care of yourself. You are the most important person in your life. You are the agent through which everything else happens. You need to rest. You need to eat well. You need to exercise. Do these things with love and gratitude. It\u2019s not an obligation, it\u2019s not a chore. It\u2019s a gift.<\/p>\n

I also need you to know that it\u2019s okay to let go of your fears, worries, anxieties. Many of those things were created by our younger self \u2013 and we both know that we\u2019re better than that. Many of our fears are mere spectres, shadows. We\u2019re stronger now. And smarter. And more sensitive. We can face these fears together, lean into them, walk through them, diffuse them. We can smile knowing that we have developed mastery over ourselves \u2013 at least, more than we had yesterday.<\/p>\n

You know, the hard thing about life \u2013 which also makes it endlessly fascinating, so be thankful for it \u2013 is that there are no universal answers. Sometimes you need to hold your ground, sometimes you need to give in. Sometimes you need to be tender, sometimes you need to be aggressive. Sometimes you need to be open to everything, sometimes you need to focus on one thing. As you read, learn, reflect, act and reflect again\u2026 you\u2019ll develop a better idea of when to do what. You\u2019ll definitely make mistakes \u2013 and that\u2019s okay! Most mistakes are survivable.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re going to die in the end. This too is a sort of blessing. We don\u2019t have to take anything with us. Everything is temporary. We\u2019re all just tracings in the sand \u2013 our greatest triumphs, our bitterest defeats, our crippling anxieties and our burning desires \u2013 everything is transient. All will pass. There\u2019s a freedom in that. There\u2019s a lightness in that. Let it in, and let it pass through you.<\/p>\n

At some level, practically, everything is in your mind. We still don\u2019t understand this very well as a species \u2013 perhaps our descendants will, and they\u2019ll do something wondrous with that knowledge \u2013 but the point is that all of the change that you seek, or need, or want\u2026 it\u2019s going to happen primarily in your mind. (There\u2019s some complexity about how the body is intertwined with the mind, and yes I mean to include all of that too. Your body is not merely a vessel to carry your brain around; your body is partially a manifestation of your mind and vice versa.)<\/p>\n

At this particular point in your life, it seems and feels like you\u2019ve been holding on to a lot. Childhood trauma and anxieties are still trapped in your body, in the forms of tense muscles and shallow breathing. We\u2019re going to work through all of that. Together.<\/p>\n

You were worriedly asking at some point \u2013 when exactly does a boy become a man? You worried that you weren\u2019t quite sizing up. You weren\u2019t quite enough, you thought. \u00a0You were always making mistakes (and you will continue to make them!).<\/p>\n

But here you are. Your\u2019e about to live into a part of your life that many wonderful people were never able to. You\u2019re an adult now. Maybe at some point we can spend some time geeking out about precisely where that transition happened. But you know that such an event probably doesn\u2019t even exist. We\u2019ve been oscillating back and forth across both states for a few years now. That\u2019s part of why there was so much tension and frustration \u2013 because we were embodying two states at once, not quite comfortable with either. It\u2019s like a sort of second adolescence. And there was no explicit ritual to guide you through it. But here you are.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re in charge. And you deserve to be. Own it, with confidence. You\u2019ve earned it, and you will need to continue to earn it. You can and you will.<\/p>\n

Inevitably, you\u2019re going to feel bogged down. You\u2019re going to feel tired, overwhelmed, lost, confused. All of that is completely normal. It\u2019s a part of life. It\u2019s what makes it interesting. It\u2019s the challenge. What you need to know is that you have what it takes. In a sense, you always did. It was always inside you. You just need to remember. You just need to center yourself. Breathe deeply, remind yourself of who you are. You know what you\u2019re made of. You know what you\u2019re made for. You know what matters, and what doesn\u2019t. There is an entire universe inside of you, swirling and raging. You are nobody and you are everybody. You are nothing and you are everything. You have a good head and a good heart. I truly believe this. So get out there into the trenches of everyday life. We need you.<\/p>\n

With kindness and compassion, with a big, strong, beating heart, with love,<\/p>\n

Visa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(I wrote this in June 2017, while I was on reservist) Dear Visa, How are you? It\u2019s me, your oldest friend, who\u2019s always been here for you, who knows you by heart. We haven\u2019t had a lot of time for each other lately \u2013 and that\u2019s okay, life is hard.… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[594],"tags":[580],"class_list":["post-12250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-review","tag-status-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5gxNz-3bA","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12250\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}