I’ve been to Denver, and now I’m back in Singapore, sitting on the big steps in the Esplanade, easing myself back into work.
I have much to do, and, reminding myself, time to do it. All I have to do is work, and things will move.
I’ve learned not to do a to-do list. As much as it would help to empty my brain, a list always looks overwhelming.
So I’m here, blogging. It helps bring me back to fingers on the keyboard, words flowing, reminding myself that I know how to do this, have done this many times before, and I can still do this again.
To love is to work…
and to do the work is to love.
The words came out of me this morning, while I was in bed. Work and love lead to each other. And all I have to do is to start at either, and allow the cycle to move again.
To-do: Whatsapp Eugene. Figure out how many viewings have been done while I was away, and in total, and set up a meeting with my clients if needed. Probably needed. They need to shift--I need to enter agent mode in this relationship, and they need to... I need to show them why... I get to find a way to have us working together to the same goal. They need to trust me as an exp-- someone who knows what she is doing here.
How many viewings? ||||/
Double-check: ||||/
Viewing total: 4 + 5 = 9
Whatsapp Eugene to confirm. [4:03 pm]
Add to calendar: Renew Intent to Sell on 18 July (then 7-day cooling period) [4:06 pm]
To-do: Whatsapp Tammy. Meet next week? Friday?
Whatsapping [4:09 pm]
Things don’t have to be perfect…
you succeed in spite of perfection, as Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy write in “Big Feelings”, and all you need is 80%.
They mention a consultant who has a Post-It note on her desk that says something like “B+ can change lives, but work not done changes nothing”.
I stall myself when it comes to ghostwriting, because I want perfection. I want clients to read it and go “WOAH. Brilliant!” I want that reaction because I feel like I’m inadequate, and I fear that they will regret working with me.
What actually happens when I give in to that fear? I stall, delay, procrastinate, and in the end, deadlines are missed, and I am incompetent. This is a fact, because deadlines have been missed.
What happens if I don’t let the fear take over, and I do what I can, and allow for the 80%? Work gets done, work gets sent, and I can chase for feedback. I can edit, I can change, try new things, work on more chapters, and the books come out. Even if delayed, things happen. Even better, maybe I’m on time after all.
Things don’t have to be perfect babygirl. Things just need to happen. At 80%, that’s all you need.
Check whatsapp [4:21 pm]
Reply Tammy.
Don't answer the groupchat I'm still in... I'm technically not in the team anymore (old real estate team...)
[4:22 pm] I just realised the cover of my iced tea wasn't set properly... What I thought was condensation was probably tea falling onto my dress... -_- oh well.
That's what clothes are for, I guess.
[4:25 pm] dance break. Olivia Dean's "The Hardest Part". No clue what the song is about, it just sounds good.
Thinks about a TikTok I saw where a singing coach helps a student lower the brightness of her tone to match the other song (I make it so easy to fall...). Maybe I can take singing lessons? --
[4:28 pm] song changed. ok what now? leg stretchhhh.
I miss, therefore it is important, feeling alive.
In Denver I was waking up at 7:30 am. And all I wanted to do was to get up and go.
Downstairs was friends and pancakes and lasagna and tea and chips and… life. Adventure. There were people I liked and games to play and places to explore. There was life in the kitchen, at the dining, on the couch.
There was sunlight, there was snow, the trees were starting to green and putting out new budding leaves, the air was cold while the sun was hot…
If it all sounds romanticised, I had a lot of crap moments too. It was cold and so dry it was hard to breathe and I had a lot of stressful dreams that woke me up with an actual jerk. One morning my head actually lifted off the pillow. I still don’t like freezing and how my nose bled every single day and how one night I woke up and felt my head hurt from the inside because the back of my nasal passage had dried out and froze and I had to choose between killing more of those cells or save them by killing new cells in my throat by breathing through my mouth, all while dying to sleep… I acutely, intimately, viscerally, physically know that there is a hole in your head from that.
Sorry, I just had to get that out of my system. Oh and how, because my nose started running, the skin under my nose dried out, froze, and peeled off — all the while telling my nerves that it was burning, leaving me in pain and confunded — and when I finally understood what was happening, I tried smearing on so much lip balm I looked ghastly pale when I finally looked at myself in a mirror… I am severely underprepared if I go back in actual winter…
What I mean by life isn’t about the pain (no, I do not believe suffering makes good memories. good memories make good memories). I mean there was life inside the house — everything there was meant to be used — and life outside because there were places to go and things to do.
I came home and was struck by how dead life was here. I’m living with my parents, and they moved my things around when I wasn’t in, so it doesn’t feel like mine. I have pockets of places that feel like mine, and I love those little spheres of life.
Outside of the home.. I realised that I didn’t have… a reason to live.
To be clear, I don’t mean that in a suicidal way. I have no intent on leaving my physical body permanently. I mean it in the sense of… having something to wake up for in the morning.
My life is great: I have a home to live in, food, clothes, toys and pretty things. I even found and love the love of my life (still a surprise to me).
I don’t have a… passion. An overarching “this is what I wanna do” that lasts me months or years or decades.
Is this what happens when I live only for today?
I know I did this to myself — is this how I got here? In my desire to carpe diem, did I just lock myself out of the satisfaction of having a life that has a plan??
This is why I write, people. To have the conversations with myself that make me pause and go “whattt??”
Shit.. I mean–fuck–I mean, that’s no better–I mean…
What did I just do to myself??
HELLOOOoo??
Thanks Spotify–
and I see my reflection in the snow-covered hills
when a landslide brought me down…well I’ve been afraid of changing
‘cos I built my life around you.But time makes you bolder…
and I’m getting older too…
I was trying to get roller skates, I now realise, in a vaguely desperate attempt to have something to learn, something that had a path of learning, to feel alive. I didn’t want roller skates. I want life.
To fall in love with something I could dedicate (at least a portion of) my life to.
So that’s what’s missing.
Now that I know that love is work, what do I want to love?
If I’m asking Divinity for a reason to live, (and yeah, I’m scared that I just did that,) I’m gonna have to answer the call.
[5:28 pm] check whatsapp.
[5:54 pm] setting up a date to meet sellers, and okayed to a gathering at Kean and Tammy's.
That took a while. Remember: it doesn't have to be perfect. I just have to be human. (Was stressed trying to form the right message to the sellers. Just ask to meet. That's what I needed.)
[5:57 pm] time to track finances. It's currently a mess of movements.
[7:47 pm] That took a while. In between I peed and answered Tammy, but the bulk of the time was figuring out where the money was supposed to go, and carefully tracking it, and making decisions on which account was supposed to pay for what.
I label my accounts: the annual (payments), what I have (in general for the future), the 10 percent (the savings), the monthly (the money for the month). I split the monthly money into my Wise card, an effort to keep an eye on the budget, with all the cashless payments.
It's interesting holding the range of emotions of "I'm stressed because I spent a lot of money", "I'm really grateful I got to buy wonderful things", and "I had a good month, money-wise".
Had a talk with my spirit team and they wanted me to get comfortable with increasing my spending capacity. I know there's a post in here somewhere -- there's a warning people have about increasing your spending when you increase your earnings, but there's also a point to be made about increasing your capacity to hold joy, choosing what success and abundance look like, and how spending your money consciously is different from following what everyone else does and how they spend to gain love or attention or whatever else people trauma-soothe with money.
[8:26 pm] got distracted by some very good musicians. posted a few stories. finished this box of thoughts.
There’s always more to do, and time to do it.
Life is, I wrote this morning, about growth and continuous learning, creating and curating.
This moment is just a moment in movement, that’s why moments are so messy.
Do I still have things to do? Yes. But I did things today, and there will be time tomorrow.
Time to finish this post, this moment, and keep moving on.
🩷🌧️✨
Image of snow-capped mountains (snow-covered hills)
in the distance by AlMaCh from Pixabay.
It was tagged Colorado.
