I was looking at my DNA results the other day because I got an email from Ancestry and every time I log on it makes me laugh because I am not split into many categories. Two primary - Iceland and France. I am currently obsessed with everything French because I am veery much in the missing of my mom and Aunt and they both loved that aesthetic and wore it well. I saw a woman on TikTok who had a little corner bistro table and French bistro chairs and didn’t save it but I found this photo on Pinterest and I AM OBSESSED. I want a little space like this so I can be more intentional and slow with my eating. Actually I want it exactly like this. Creamy white walls, and interesting vintage framed art and a marble topped table with a black pedestal base and two bistro chairs but I would have floral fabric seats I think. Or plain velvet. In a teal or gold.
Why amI telling you this? A little back story:
At the beginning of this year I gave myself the promise that I would devote 6 months to just me and my work. It was so fabulous I decided to devote the rest of the year to it. No dating. Very little socializing. A whole lot of daydreaming and miles and miles of tv and movies and music and books full of secret messages to guide me through the next 45 years of my life (assuming I live to 100 which is my plan).
Then the Lola diagnosis hit and I fell deep into a well of anticipatory grief and a lot of the space I had made in the first 4 months of the year vanished into thin air. Not all of it but quite a bit.
Things like how I was looking after myself and how I was looking after my home. All the creative projects I was working on came to a dead stop and things I loved doing I stopped. The only thing I did with love and consistency (other than helicopter parent) Lola was Your Favorite Self tour and Auntie Collection. I kept those commitments to my kittens and wild ones and that pretty much ate up my bandwidth.
Lola is what Lola is. My absolute bestie of a cat daughter - who I feel I birthed from my loins - who has advanced kidney cancer but I don’t think she is days from death like I was told. Obviously cause that was early May and today is the beginning of August. I think her worm treatment for Leonard Colon - her intestinal parasite - is already helping, She has slowed down as seniors with medical conditions do and what happens is going to happen but I need to be back in the land of the living. I miss myself and I miss my life.
Re-entry is hard because when you sink to the bottom of the well of despair you have to float back up again. I started with a few things I had put off. I made a dentist appointment and showed up for it and it was brutal but I survived and I am proud of myself. I made a chiro appointment and showed up (a few times now) because all my surgeries and depression and covid anxiety has locked my back and hips and I miss my body moving like it used to. Both of these things are gonna be a slow and painful process that I have decided to give myself grace to muddle through and I will make more appointments and show up for those as well.
My love languages remain space, ease, and simplicity so I am doing a purge thing I saw years ago where you get rid of one thing on day one and two things on day two and so on. I know that letting go is now a superpower of mine after years of leaving claw marks on everything I let go of so I am excited about that. When that is done I will tweak my 2020 redecoration to include a little bistro spot because I already know I will make the space for it.
I am back on my duolingo and in a 28 day streak of Spanish and French. I am doing my silly mental health walks and as soon as the heat wave lifts this apartment is gonna get scrubbed with bleach and vinegar and all the auntie collection boxes will be properly packed and mailed. I had a bubble wrap issue - as in I couldn’t GET any and it’s here now and I want people to get their treasures so yay for that. I launched a wild musings for August that I created earlier this year and was supposed to be in spring. The timing of this tour being pleasure focused even though by my January plan it is delayed is not lost on me.
I love Leo season and the fire it brings and I am glad I trusted my gut with Lola this week and decided to start again. For me, that is the beauty of being human. I can always start again.
Live wild. Stay gold. Thanks for hanging out with me.
Renee xx
You can check out the daily purge on TikTok @wildmusings and you can read about the Pleasure Tour HERE.