Here goes... it's ✨MJC-mail!✨

A MUCH LESS SAD UPDATE

Hello my beautiful email pals! 💜

Let me start by saying my god, the reassurance + kindness you all offered me after last month’s update was so healing. Part of me still always expects an attack to be lurking in every comment section (learned response 🙄), so actually finding an abundance of understanding and well-intentioned advice… Well, it was a beautiful gift for you to give me. Thank you.

My main take-aways from what you shared with me were:

1. Humans get sad sometimes and we deserve safe spaces to feel those feels, rather than forcing ourselves to get back to happy when we’re not ready.

2. The dark, cold months are hard and maybe we’re just wintering.

3. Being completely consumed by everything that’s wrong in the world

   a) isn’t your job

   b) doesn’t make those things any better and

   c) makes it much more difficult to be alive and help where we can

So, with all of that in mind, a change of meds and a whole lot of self-gentleness, I started to climb out of the doom spiral, and re-connect to my life...

I found lots of moments for gratitude in January, some days of genuine peace, and I let the light back in 🌞

Me in a twerk sandwich 🥪I took the middle selfie on the street after my first class back this year & I felt like I was FLYING on endorphins. More dancing in 2023.

One of the places I’ve found the MOST joy in the last year is definitely dance class. Getting out of my thoughts, into my body + moving to a beat feels like giving myself radical permission to just… be.

Another mindful activity alert: I’ve decided that this is the year I learn how to cook. Properly. I could probably live on beans on toast + various pasta dishes forever, but it’s time to level up. And turns out, getting into the flow of a recipe, learning new things and feeling proud of something you’ve made? All good for the brain. Who knew?

Homemade southern fried chicken burger with bacon jam + sweet potato fries // spanikopita (Greek pastry with feta, spinach + onion), oregano wedges + fresh tzatziki // sticky peanut chicken skewers with coconut fried rice… pretend it’s all vegan if you’re that way inclined 🧡

My girlfriend is especially thankful for this new hobby and I am especially thankful for the ways she’s supported me through the grey weeks…

My three best girls clocking up some quality time

I don’t know about anyone else, but letting a new person in and allowing them to actually be a partner when you’ve always tried to figure out everything by yourself has been a real learning curve for me.

It’s been a leap of vulnerability to trust that things can be different. And so far, it’s definitely paid off 💜

being cute & gay at the spa/in the tub

I also happened to have a birthday this month (30!!! 🥳) and bae whisked me away for a weekend made in heaven.

We lived our best bougie spa life, absolutely smashed the breakfast buffet & looked at the sky a lot. It was perfect and I couldn’t have asked for a better entry into this next decade. ✨

Sometimes my brain makes poems and this one arrived on my birthday, as I sat looking over a peaceful expanse of green, listening to water trickling nearby. I hope you enjoy some part of it 😘

Things i know on the day i turn 30:

Nothing at all (and everything i need)
We're made for sun and grass and sugar and trees
If you're hollow and they say it's love - leave
Some people need you to be the problem - breathe

The You who is Forever is young and unafraid
You will lose her for years but She will stay
It is a heartbreaking miracle to feel all you do;
Write, paint, sing, cry, whenever you need to

Everyone is shit at driving sometimes and
Nobody has noticed that patch of sweat
The skincare stuff is trial and error and 
For fuck sake when you're ill - rest

Sex isn't shorthand for connection
And being wanted won't make you whole.
Forgive yourself for believing both,
You were only ever doing as you were told

You are bigger than big and smaller than small
Emails get missed; you can't carry it all
You are surrounded by love, even when you're numb
Do another day; see what things become

You will not save or destroy with one plastic bag;
Moral perfection is a myth, we're all good and bad
The space in your brain belongs to you
Line it with peace and comfort and your own truth 

When the sun chooses you, stand in her warm
Speak to the ancestors and call your mum
You're allowed nice things but things is all they are
Meet their gaze when you walk in, you got yourself this far

Say thank you to strangers and Sundays and the sky 
Bow to past pain so it can pass by
There is time to be held, to wander, to play
It's ok to not know, and do life anyway

Transcript: Something that I always forget when I’m in a really dark place, is that I’m not gonna think my way out of it. I’m not gonna solve my overthinking by thinking about it more. I can’t get myself out of the hole by digging deeper. The only way out is to look up and reconnect with my life again. Doing the things that I know mattered to me before, seeing the people who I know I love, reconnecting and thinking less. And it’s not this flick of the switch, suddenly everything’s ok again, it’s just this gradual adding up of the moments until you feel like “oh, this is what being ok feels like, this is joy, this is peace”. And it all starts with being willing to let go a little, and trust that it’s ok to not know the answers, and do life anyway.

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That’s all for this month my angels! Thank you SO much for sticking here with me, for being human and imperfect and still showing up.

And extra thank you to those of you who are willing to support what I put out tangibly by being paid subscribers - it’s never an expectation but it’s always very very appreciated 🌻

The comments are open as always to share your life updates, reflections, revelations or to just sprinkle some extra love on whomever might read them!

Big BIG love,

M

💜