New energy

I’m not sure whether it’s the new year’s energy or the new moon energy finally coming upon/into me a week or two late, or whether it’s the positive effects of going out dancing again at last with a friend on Saturday night. Something has shifted for me, and has shifted positively, with a new opening since this past weekend. 

Something has opened up in me again. 

During the first two weeks of this new year I’ve been feeling quite sad and weighed down, feeling a lack of hope toward the oncoming months and finding myself looking back so often, instead of forward, or looking forward but only with a negative sense of comparison to this same time of year from the past — like all the hope I was feeling then was now not only gone but also impossible to find or feel again. But now, for the past few days, I’ve been feeling open and quite full of that universal, all-encompassing love and joy again. I’m looking forward again — both in the sense of feeling happy about the things that I have to do, that lay ahead of me, and also in the sense of literally looking at the days & weeks & months to come, and what they might bring, rather than think about the past too much. 

The month of January has been an important month of renewal, liberation, big changes, and even leaps of faith for me for several years now. In January 2016, I moved from Europe to California to start my life anew, leaving a lot behind, and fulfilling a dream I had had for years, maybe decades. The following January of 2017, in California, I got my motorcycle license and my own first motorcycle, thus concretizing a wish and expressing a part of myself that had been suffocated for a long time, probably starting the long journey of self-discovery and self-affirmation that eventually led to my gender journey as well. In January of 2018 I started teaching at university, effectively going back to academia after a break of almost a decade and thus also fulfilling another dream or, at least, giving myself another chance. The following January of 2019, I taught my first upper-division elective class: a wonderful experience that changed me both on the professional and on the personal level very much. Two years ago, in January of 2022, I left California setting out for Colorado, once again starting anew, following my heart, with a lot of fear and trepidation but also a lot of hope. And finally, last January 2023, I had my gender-affirming top-surgery! And since for me big changes like my moves from Europe to California and then from California to Colorado or like my gender-affirming surgery entail a lot of emotional preparation and rituals, this time of year for me is full of anniversaries. 

Some of these anniversaries from past events, e.g. those of Jan. 19th & Jan. 26th, I am celebrating — and really looking forward to commemorate — this year. 

But I’m also creating new memories and rituals and celebrations that belong to my present, to renewal here & now. I’m feeling the power and energy that come from past anniversaries to fuel my new rituals and celebrations here & now. 

I’m feeling ready to start anew with a conviction and lightness of heart and sense of hope that I hadn’t been feeling in months. 

I believe that I truly shed something huge while dancing on Saturday night: that physical sense of the pain flowing out of me and the grief peeling off of me, of the pain and grief physically leaving my body & mind & soul like water flowing out of me or layers of old skin peeling off of me, has really brought me liberation. I believe something of paramount importance really happened on Saturday night, almost at the level of my KAPT sessions last May, transforming me — or my view of things — in a profound and liberating way. 

I am truly ready to start anew, leaving behind everything that doesn’t need to come any further with me. 

I am moving on into this new year, or new phase.