It’s the eve of my 34th rotation around the sun and I’m writing this from the office of my new living situation - a beautiful apartment in a quiet neighborhood down the street from the beach.
I’m currently staring out at a lush palm tree in front of my window, watching a squirrel and a bird pick from the fruits of the various flowers and feeling the gentle breeze from the ocean filter the room and roam across my skin.
This is a hard won moment, a clear manifestation fulfilled and one that brings tears to my eyes because it marks the true (and momentous) ending and beginning of a new chapter.
For those who have been on the journey with me, my childhood home has officially been sold and the keys were handed over to the new owners this past week which I wrote more about in this Instagram post .
As I continue to process the true depth and grief of what it means to let go of a childhood home and the foundation that made me, what it took to physically and emotionally pack it up and sell it with the care and intentionality I put into it (plus the years of emotional work before this moment), who I needed to be in order for that to happen and what my family unit looks like post-divorce and post-move, I have also been feeling into the textures of what it means to start over……..or as I have been referring to it: “beginning again.”
During a transition it can be really difficult to only focus on what you are leaving behind (understandably) and what I’ve learned deeply throughout this process is that as important as it is to honor the past and hold space for grief around what’s being let go, it’s really important to also begin to envision and appreciate what’s possible in the next chapter.
I’ve been referring to it as “beginning again” because my experience is that starting over implies “wiping the slate clean” and starting fresh.
While that may theoretically sound really nice, the truth is that I’m not sure we really want to start over with a clean slate. What about all the hard won lessons we (l)earned that deserve a life where they can be embodied and integrated? What about the wisdom that needs a place to rest its head and be shared? Where does all of that go?
"I think we like the idea of a clean slate to start over but what I think we really want is to begin again."
We want the opportunity to be the artists and architects of our own life / reality and to use life as our canvas but we also want to make sure we are doing so from a place of integrated experience and wisdom.
This way, what we build moving forward continues to honor all parts of us and is a reflection of our very real, human, complex, messy, rich and multi-dimensional life while also creating a solid foundation for our future self to feel safe and fully form.
Even if it feels like you are taking a step backwards or you find yourself in a chapter of life that feels familiar or that you’ve been before - are you really taking a step backwards? Is it actually really the same?
I think we have to give ourselves far more compassion and credit. When we find ourselves in these situations, it’s important to realize that it may seem that way at first glance but the questions to reflect on are:
Am I actually the same person?
How have I evolved (and also not) since the last time I was here?
How is the step "backwards" actually a necessary move to quantum leap into my next phase of evolution?
For example, in a not so subtle turn of events, I am currently living across the street from the very job I used to work for that I exited 5.5 years ago for my creative entrepreneurship path. I left as one version of myself and have returned as someone with the same core values but also radically different: a highly sensitive entrepreneur, an artist, a writer, a creative, a healer, a surfer, an actor whose exploring creativity, spirituality and sexuality and re-defining what’s possible with(in) community.
I saw a quote awhile back from the author Alex Elle that has remained on my vision board that says “Giving yourself permission to start over is how you show yourself love.”
I would modify that to say:
“Allowing yourself to begin again is an act of self-love.”
As painful, scary, unknown and even panic inducing saying goodbye to an old way of being, an old job, an old relationship or an old chapter may be, it is that very initiation that ushers us into our next stage of beautiful evolution.
And to resist evolution is to not only resist our own greatness and aliveness, it is to resist life itself.
As Octavia Butler says in one of my all time favorite books, Parable of the Sower: “All that you change changes You. The only lasting truth is Change. God is change.”
Change can be scary and it doesn’t always have to be BIG change (but it can be!). Beginning again can be scary, it’s the complete unknown but that is also really exciting; that is where possibility lives and thrives because it’s never existed before. With all of its complexities and contradictions, this moment, this chapter, this version of you and your life has never existed before now.
And if my mother and 82 year old father can begin again now in their separate lives after all this time, I know this is possible.
So, on my birthday I am celebrating all of the ways I have allowed myself to begin again; to metaphorically be thrown into life's fire and die and be re-born over and over again (because as a 3x over Gemini, lord knows I love me a dramatic rebirth) and I hope you use this as a chance to do the same.
It's Gemini season. Look in the mirror. Celebrate yourself - ALL versions of you - past, present and future. I deserve it, you deserve it, WE deserve it.
It takes great strength and courage to go through a transition and choose to begin again and I’ve provided some reflection questions below if you find them helpful.
Sending you much love,
Bianca
