F*ck it all February

Clawing our way out of a January that felt like it was 3 months long, we have finally arrived in February, one of the more depressing months in the Northern Hemisphere— where you know you’re so close to spring but there are mounting piles of dog-piss-coated snow and brown slush lining the streets and sidewalks. All of this in conjunction with a raging vitamin D deficiency, a classic case of SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) and a massive decline in freelance opportunities has really had me leaning into my tortured artist complex this winter. Anybody else?

I’ve been feeling so nihilistic lately, so deeply resentful of how difficult and confusing life seems and how unfair it is to have to operate against our natural rhythms in order to survive. Especially in these grey and bleak days, where we have to soak our shoes in the snow to gather our provisions for the week AND battle through snowstorms to get to our jobs that don’t afford us anything other than the opportunity to *almost* pay our bills. I don’t know how relatable this is, but January-March are my worst months for freelance creative work and the financial strain is palpable. My abundance spells aren’t working fast enough. The universe isn’t listening to my affirmations, and even I don’t believe the mantras I speak to myself. My stores from the summer are long depleted and if we were living in a hunter/gatherer society I’d probably be dead months ago, but instead I’m forced to endure this half-life where I need to be places I don’t want to be and do things I don’t want to do, so more imaginary numbers can appear in my bank account and I can survive another month.

If I could have a conversation with my astral-self I would literally shake her down for sending me to this earthly plane because frankly, it sucks here and I’m over it. I feel like a giant woman-baby, stumbling around in waist-deep snow trying to build a snow-fort while it melts all around me. I’m mopping the ocean, I’m sweeping the desert. I’m Sylvia Plath watching the rotting figs or whatever and I’m really living up to the stereotype of the "starving artist” lately.

What was the artist actually starving for, in that metaphor? Probably money which is super relatable, but maybe something more.

Personally, I’m starving for a life that feels like my own, for time outside of stolen moments between a job and life admin. I’m starving for a future that is just beyond my grasp but clear enough to see. I’m starving for connection, community, purpose. I’m tired of this “pay to play” society and the failure of our “leaders”, who remind me of the aloof and out of touch clientele that frequent the spa I work at. I want to live in harmony with nature. I want to live in sync with the rhythms of my body, with the phases of my cycle. I want food sovereignty and bodily autonomy, safety and for humanity to really need eachother. I want cataclysmic and radical change in our systems and policies. I want a collapse of the monetary system, so that we may see the true value in people and not the numbers tied to them that dictate their worth. I want to crawl gently into the soil to join the mycelial network and learn the secrets of the earth. I want my consciousness to expand beyond my conditioning, I want to commune with the ethereal. I want AI to do my laundry and clean my apartment. I want the aliens to blast the billionaires and bigots and misogynists into oblivion. Is that so much to ask?

This blog post has taken a turn and I’ve lost the plot entirely (or have I?) so I’ll leave it here:

February won’t be the month I rise from the ashes as a financially literate phoenix who has liberated themselves from the confines of capitalism, so for now I’ll just show up to work and put on my best customer service voice, check people into their bio-hacking appointments and continue to hold onto the tiny fluttering bird of hope in my chest, that one day I will never have to work in the service industry again. We’re basically in March at this point and let’s be real, things will probably be more of the same, my abundance spells need more time to kick in ;)… but maybe April? Maybe when the snow melts and the birds return, when everything comes into colour again and the air smells like rain and grass. Things will get better.

Anyway, how are you doing?