Living in several timelines

Notes from a complex being.

Hello sweet friend.

I’ve been thinking about substack. Desiring substack. Feeling a pull to write and write again— but I have been completely swept up into several timelines.

Do you have days when you feel many timelines living in your body? I’ve decided to briefly touch on those here today.

One timeline is the brittle, cracked state of the world. The cruelty, greed and corruption that makes all of us ache with a subtle (and sometimes loud) desperation. The fires, floods, wars, and terrible decisions seem to erupt at every turn. The media spins a constant roller coaster of contraction, clenching and angst. People shout through tense sentences across internet. There is a lack of trust that seethes below every surface.

The world is angry. The earth is angry. Even the sky has become angry. Everyone swims inside of their own unique loneliness it seems. We share a collective, quiet anxiety as time lurches on, even on “good’ days.

My close friends and I often check in on each others survival more than connect. Everything has dissolved into light, passing, unsatisfying touches. “Hi friend. Thinking of you.”

We are all so tired.

My sensitive self wants to hide, plant roses (even in Texas), cry to the morning birds, find seeds of hope, bury into the warm bodies of my dogs, walk until the ache releases and pray to the trees.

Another timeline: My quest for a good and steady partner, It’s been lackluster at best. I have so much more to say on my journey in that realm (the ultra romantic being that I am) that I could write a book on that alone. Dating in your forties is a wild trip — extremely beautiful and erotic in some moments yes, but mostly a long and continuous strain on the heart.

And then there is the timeline of work.: how, despite the twists of the last few chaotic years, my business has quietly expanded. Expanded to the point that I haven’t gotten my own writing in until I carved out time again.

My 1:1 coaching and big seasonal immersions that have grown more and more riveting and rooted as I’ve fine tuned and deepened my leadership and energetic space holding. I see each workshop as a body I am holding and working on, allowing the flow to circle and wash over each person until we are in a space of water. This in itself is a deep practice.

In the the six years prior to this large expansion, I existed in fear and uncertainty, having left the safety of my “day job” and leaping without a safety net, support, a partner, or inheritance. I showed up hour after hour to the page anyway. It was as essential as breathing and I had no plan B.

Now I have a small team and full schedule. I live for what I do. I care so deeply about my writers that I joke that I shouldn't get so emotionally attached— and yet, I do. At the same time, I probably need more days off, more time to write myself, here and elsewhere.

But I love it.

There’s a very real and tangible magic to writing and writing in community and within mine I often see it with my own eyes. This gorgeous energy circles the faces peering into the camera. There is a softening in everyones shoulders, and childlike wonder and thirst for life that returns. A sisterhood forms here. Not one of silent competition but one of true support.

The stories of my writers trace every inch and avenue of a life. These lives have seen grief and the deep pain held in the world and also the ecstasy of nature and love. This type of community is the stuff dreams are made of I am certain. A necessary quenching that rains over anything parched..

But this career growth hasn’t come in spite of the collective and personal pain. I believe it has come because I’ve stayed so close to it. Because my friend, we need to work with what’s in front of us in all ways. We need to harness and ride the energy happening now. We need to speak truth into our days. We need to write toward and into our blocks. These choices over time build intentional lives.

It’s true that I’ve been quiet on substack, not because I’ve drifted away but because I’ve been transversing so many timelines at once.

Yet I always return.

To the page.

To the body.

To the soft and slow devotion to the words.

And if you too are navigating multiple timelines—

this chaotic world, the love in your life, your work,

the good and the terrible…

I see you.

We are doing it.

More soon and all my love,

Victoria