Edition 01: Hitting my max capace

The dramatics of a Sagittarian in the midst of outgrowing

Welcome to the very first edition of Be Difficult, Darling! As a little thank you, I’ve done a voiceover reading of the article below, so you can listen to it (be sure to scroll down too for meme fun). This will be a perk for paid subscribers only going forward, so upgrade if you feel called to!

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Something’s happening.

I feel it in my fascia. I feel it as sure as Karen in Mean Girls did, when she said that her breasts can always tell when it’s gonna rain. I can just tell that something’s happening. It’s a knowing that has rang my inner doorbell before; in 2017 to be exact. The year I shaved all my hair off, ended my seven year relationship, came off birth control, left my decade long career behind and trained to be a meditation teacher. The year my life turned into ash, uncertain of which pieces to messily shove into a bin or which to birth new life from.

It’s happening again.

It sounds rather dystopian of me, but it’s happening. Last month, I couldn’t hear the doorbell ring yet, but boy could I hear the footsteps creeping ever closer to it. I had no choice but to answer, because I always answer. If you’re reading this, I know you’re the kind of person who answers. I know you’ve silently asked yourself, “what would it feel like to not do the work? To not feel so deeply? To not want to burn my damn life to the ground every 6.5 years? To not be in never-ending death and rebirth cycles?”

Because, we’re here.

The thinkers. Feelers. Healers. Cycle Breakers. Survivors. Changemakers. Disruptors. Artists. Creatives. Lovers. Challengers. Re-branders. Questioners.

And you know what, this is just our lot in this lifetime, a precious lot but also, just a hell of a lot. When you’re swimming in constant rivers of change, learning and unlearning, there will always be growth and with growth, must come outgrowing.

I’m outgrowing. No, let me say it with my chest.

I’ve outgrown.

I’ve made it out of the trenches and releasing the symptoms of outgrowing that I was living through. I’m talking sleepless nights, more dreams than I know what to do with, this palpable dislike of being in England to the point where the incessant rain feels like punishing lava instead of the exhale of a bath it once did. My skin is unbearably dry as if my mind needs physical proof that we are shedding, so eager is it to reveal the hopefulness of renewed skin underneath (I mean, I could just un-poetically be using the wrong body cream, but alas). The main symptom I had was this voice tap-dancing in my eardrums asking me, “have you been dreaming the wrong dream?”

Erm, I’m sorry. The wrong dream.

Did that just make you gag a little bit? Send a digital shockwave your way, like a taser just nipped you in the ass? Did it remind you of when you see a post from a therapist on Instagram that so deeply touches a wound that it somersaults you into an alternate reality?

Have you been dreaming the wrong dream?

I have rephrased this question that was forced upon me, because I’m not into the binary thinking of right or wrong. Is it time to dream another dream, because I’ve outgrown this one? In fact, not only outgrown it but I subconsciously, secretly, don’t even want to carry the shame of admitting it. I’ve reached the max capacity of what I believed was possible for my life.

Yup, that’s me. At my max capace as Mads Mitch hilariously says on TikTok. Me, Little Miss Ambition. Done. 34 and ready to retire. Convinced there’s nothing else for me to accomplish here. Season finale. Get me a Reformation dress for the goddamn wrap party.

Because, little did I know, there’s a part of me that can’t believe I made it so far. I’m the East London gal whose family could only afford to go to Butlins one time in my entire childhood. Eagerly waiting for the council to find a home for my Mum and I so we wouldn’t end up on the streets. She who never knew anyone who had their own business. Whose parents and grandparents didn’t go to University, and came here with luggage of more dreams than this country could ever fulfil. The same girl who spent hours in her bedroom pretending she was an author and being interviewed by magazines.

I hit my peak, pals.

I have done the things I dreamed of. I might not have the bank balance to show for it, but I have lived my wildest dreams. I have lived the dreams that many people have may not have the privilege to realise and for that I could not be more grateful. I’ve spoken to thousands of people, my book is in bookshops, I’ve worked with brands that I saved my money up to buy when I got my first job. Vogue called me, “The woman redefining spirituality for the millennial crowd”, for fuck’s sake. Let me pen my memoir, find a forest-drenched cabin to make art in and reminisce on the good old days already. Surely, that’s what I came here to do. There can’t be anything more for me. It’s enough for me.

Let’s go back to where I said I have lived my wildest dreams. Well, I haven’t have I? I lived the wildest dreams of a child who didn’t have any comprehension of what a wild life could be. I lived the wildest dreams according to what felt safe for me and just neatly enough on the edge of my comfort zone to convince me that it was bigger than big. I lived the wildest dreams of what society says is the wildest dream. Now, I see that I’ve reached the max capacity of what the ancestral trauma I carry on my back, the times I was assaulted, in pain and hyper-vigilance have convinced me is all I can experience here.

So, into the healing I went. A trip to California. Balcony chats with the medicine woman herself, Sand Symes. Spells from my friend Semra of Mama Moon Candles, psychic circles with Natalie Miles, my best friend Shannon saying to me, “I think the universe has shadow-banned you,” and crying to my therapist for the 6,345th time.

Something shifted.

I ripped up every thought and vision I had about what I wanted for my life. What success meant. What it means to be ambitious. To live a bold life. I wasn’t at my ever so dramatic, max capace. I wasn’t dreaming the wrong dream. I just grew more into myself. I remember saying to myself last year, that I’m ready for my outsides to match my insides. For my life to physically look as joyful as my heart felt. But, it wasn’t marble-counter apartments and limewash walls that I was craving. The things that we are all supposed to want.

The dream is the space and time to frolic, rest, have sensually slow mornings, spend a few months in different places, letting cities and the sea be my source material. To eat abundantly and laugh with my girlfriends on cheesecloth blankets in lavender-freckled fields. But mainly, I just want to write. I want to write and make art. I want to feel free. I want the dream that capitalism hasn’t found a way to market to us yet.

I'm not being moved into a new era because I hate my job and my life. Well, right now I most certainly am having some issues with the country on my passport, but otherwise, all good. I’m being moved by the need to grow, to step wildly into a version of self that is more realised than the last. To let go of the things I thought I wanted. The work I was forcing. The people I was trying to convince.

I am no longer afraid of what life will look like on the other side. On the other side of shedding, re-imagining, and deep questioning. I’m not afraid because I know that I will be there. I will be there glancing in admiration at willow trees, tears crashing into my smiling cheeks at the people I love, knees dampened by the ocean and a heart filled with joy at how lucky I am to be a part of this life, these choices I have the privilege to make and for my devotion to carving out a place for myself on this planet to breathe boldly in.

And I’m so excited to have you all here with me.