“Hi future Jess, are you enlightened yet?” – said my past diary that I re-read this year, trolling me super hard. Well done past Jess, you got me. Because the answer is not yes but it’s also not no.
I started the year in Sheffield, deep in my “meditation year”, and had some significant shifts in the final months. Let’s try to say what they were, argh. After much practice of focussing on senses, I finally saw that they must be occurring in some kind of “space”. That “space” is non-judgemental, quiet. I also no longer identified as the voice in my head/thoughts. And, burst out laughing when I realised there is no evidence whatsoever in my experience for a “self”. All this in February and March.
I forgot and re-remembered these insights over and over again. It’s so hard to tell if I’m really learning anything, if it’s merely a slow and gradual process or if I’m failing to reach escape velocity continuously.
In March I broke up with a boyfriend from London, and had a massively symbolic dream on the same day. I found out later it was the night of Maha Shivaratri – auspicious.
After the meditation year was “over” at the end of March, I wasn’t sure what to do next. I feel like I just drifted until JessCamp, which was in mid-May. It was a success, but stressful and draining, especially in the days afterwards.
And that started the summer of not being deluded about boys. So many soft boys trying to get close to me in ways that made me feel awkward. And of course there was no hint from the men I actually did like, as few and far between as they were. Clearly I was creating this dynamic as much as any of them were, and almost all my travel of the summer pushed my delusions into my face until it was unignorable.
I saw I was putting out intimacy in ways I didn’t realise, and I had to see that being too open was inviting in a certain kind of yearning that I wasn’t prepared to help with. I was also not looking after my own needs properly, especially if money was involved.
This led me to having almost no sex at all this year, bar a distinctly mid one night stand at a festival. Even though I am still technically with my one long term, long distance boyfriend, that one hasn’t felt like a relationship for some time. I’ve been considering myself single for most of the year.
“Horny but there’s no men, fml” I wrote in my diary in July. The one upside is that I’ve been being my own source of love and comfort all year, and feeling quite capable of it. This year I truly didn’t need to be in a relationship. But it doesn’t mean I don’t want to be.
Amongst all that, I had a great time at VibeCamp, even when the airline lost my luggage and I wore Walmart clothes all weekend. I loved it so much I went back for an extended trip to the East Coast in September.
Getting to know Philly and NYC was awesome, and cementing some American friendships was similarly awesome. As was launching Chaleira, a digital magazine for the twitter people. Its founding has me dreaming of a bigger career in journalism, which was, after all, my childhood dream. I feel so ridiculously stupid sometimes. But then again, I feel that I would not have been suited to the job until this very moment.
Later in the year, I took a long time to realise I needed to make choices for myself first, not for the benefit of nebulous “others”. This was in regard to where to live. Immediately a synchronicity about a house in Wales showed itself (something I’ve been wanting since this time last year), so I followed through, signed the paperwork and everything, but on the very day of Mercury retrograde the landlord reversed his offer of the house. This has saved me in some way, though I can only guess how.
I think I must take from this what it feels like to follow one’s own pure dreams, for one’s own sake. A chance to learn what that feels like.
But being unrooted is the current price. I have moved house 6 times this year. Living in a haunted mansion, dead granny’s bedroom and friend’s office is cool and all, but also not, ya know?
I have shed a lot. So much. I can stand to shed more. I have seen what makes me happy, materially, and it all fits into a tiny rucksack. I have seen the hint that possessions can flow through me, instead of lying inert in boxes. I’m almost at the point of not really packing any clothes, and just heading to the nearest thrift store for that trip’s clothing and random books to read. Almost.
And of those mementos that I do keep, I know what I miss (my diaries) and not much else. Still I can’t quite stand to throw all evidence of my past in the trash, what if I one day want to reminisce? Will I want that? Memory still freaks me out.
This summer I became interested in my subconscious and quit weed so I could dream more. I actually had the sweats for a week or so, and still have twitching legs when trying to sleep, something I’d totally forgotten I suffer from. But the dreams are good. My dream language has come on in leaps and bounds, and my interpreting tools have broadened.
I’ve never had so much equanimity as I have now, and Christmas confirmed that.
Apparently I saved a life this year. Thank you, friend, for saying so.
Not great, not bad, not wasted, not magical, not enlightened, not not enlightened, still observing everything and able to capitalise on nothing. No direction, no crew, no place, no job, no disclosure, no evidence of God, no evidence of self, deaf, dumb, blind, no powers, no clue. 2024, that was you.
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