Sunday 29th October 2023
It’s coming up to a year since I started Nessa C Writes!!!! I would love to hear from you about what you’d like me to write about. Got a burning question that you’d like me to answer? Or maybe there’s something I’ve mentioned over the last year that you might like me to elaborate on. Get in touch and let me know!
This week’s post is a bit of a long’un so get yourself a cuppa (or your drink of choice), pop your feet up and take your time.
xo
I have a confession.
It has been approximately a year since I last finished any of the scripts that I’ve been working on.
Damn - It feels good to sort of say that out loud. I want to scream it from the rooftops and tell it to every single person that I meet, but for now I’ll settle with writing it to you.
There’s been a whole heap happening and for once I’m deciding to give myself grace here and take a step back and be accepting of myself. “Finally”, I hear you scream!
It's been a year since I was denied entry at the border in California for having a house sit as my accommodation instead of a hotel. The memory, haunting me like it was yesterday.
I can’t quite believe that on 31st October, a year would have flown by since an immigration officer dressed as Jack Skellington complete with face paint to mark Halloween, told my sleep deprived self, that I would be on the next available flight home to the UK. There’s definitely some stand up material in this eventually. I’m working on it.
So much has happened since that day, and yet in a lot of ways I feel like nothing has happened at all.
Excuse the language, but it’s major mindfuckery when you’re so convicted and sure that you were going to be someplace else, you pack up your stuff, say your goodbyes, quit your job and up and leave only to return 24 hours later when you thought it would be at last 3 months.
There have been a few things that have happened / I’ve come to realise over this last year and I’d like to share some of them with you…
1. My relationship with God got reset and I feel like I’m starting at the beginning again.
Yet in doing so it’s also been the strongest that it’s ever been. I’ve really stripped back my faith to its “purest form”, I guess. I’m craving simplicity and so I’ve been slowly but surely putting aspects of my life under a microscope and seeing how I can simplify things to be slower and have strong spiritual rhythms in place. I’m not interested in the spectacle of being a Christian and I think over the last few years I’ve been doing certain things because I thought I should do them instead of doing them because I wanted to. I’ve felt that shift in the last 6 months.
2. For the first time ever in my life, I can honestly say that I don’t have a clue what I’m doing.
Yes- another admission that feels really great to be able to say. I’m told that I’m right on time with this revelation and it would have happened regardless of my circumstances so that’s reassuring to know. I’m just rolling with the punches at this point and I think this is also a byproduct of seeking out simplicity. That’s not to say that I’m going along without a plan. I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t have a plan. But, I’m trying to be less of a control freak about the outcomes and enjoying being in one place for the time being without moving elsewhere. Both geographically and otherwise.
3. Some people like to put a title on your grief and others don’t see what you’re going through as grief at all.
I shared a few months back that I realised that I’m not ready to make jokes about what happened yet. I think I realise now that I probably won’t ever be. This has been a major pivoting time in my life and I’m still trying to put the pieces back together again to create a new picture so if I haven’t started the joke, then I don’t think I’m going to appreciate somebody else joking about it on my behalf.
4. Putting the situation into a Christian context has been the least helpful thing about this whole ordeal.
When people try to contextualise it all in “God’s name” : “God was trying to protect you from something, this is all God’s timing, maybe this isn’t what God wanted for you, God decided it’s not yet… etc etc etc”, it dilutes the fact that I had a pretty harrowing experience and also ignores the fact that these things, whilst I’m sure are said to reassure, can be pretty damaging and cause further frustration on top of the trauma that has already happened.
(Also, respectfully - last I checked none of us could read minds, let alone God’s mind so…)
5. I’ve come across people who have considered themselves to be experts on what’s going on with me based solely on the things that I’ve posted on Social Media.
This has probably been the most fascinating one for me in all of this. Fascinating because to think that you can get a full grasp on someone’s life from the tiny, tiny snippet that they’ve chosen to post on platforms that are made for “look how great life is” posts, speaks volumes for the world that we’re living in. At the time of writing this, I’ve been off Instagram for 2 and a half months and right now, I have no desire to get it back or to be judged by the things I post on it either.
If you’re one of my friends, don’t be surprised if I start requiring your mailing address to write you letters because that’s the direction that I’m going these days.
6. I’m grateful and so lucky to have close friends who have got me through this and continue to get me through this!
It’s been a really hard pill to swallow realising that some people are only for you when things are going well and I think it’s been a big life lesson to me about guarding myself a little bit more than I probably have. I realised that a lot of people that I had considered to be friends were only friends with me because of what they thought I could give them as opposed to genuine friendship and this life event helped me to truly identify those people. It’s been harder than a romantic break up to go through but it has been necessary.
The main theme throughout everything that I’ve written here is this theme of being. Both inner and outer being. There has been a shift in me and the kind of person that I am becoming and I’m pretty proud of myself for the way I’ve dealt with this last year. Would I have liked it to be a bit lighter? Absolutely. But I think it’s given me a necessary time to sit back, reflect, take stock and think about how I’d like to proceed going forward.
As recent as a few weeks ago, I found myself catching up with a friend (shoutout to Ryan) and listing things that I’m not enjoying about my life right now. I didn’t even know that it was how I was feeling until I was saying it out loud and yet again there was so much freedom in that for me. I think I’ve been clinging on to a lot of things that haven’t been filling me with joy simply because of the expectations of other people and what they would think of me if I let it go.
I went on retreat last weekend which was so delightful. It helped me take stock of a lot of things and I left the retreat feeling lighter and more at peace within myself.
I realised that there are elements of my life - particularly my work life - that have become a spectator sport for other people which as a result has prevented me from letting go of things that are holding me back from what I’m supposed to be doing. I’ve put my worth in my work for a significant number of years even when I thought I wasn’t doing that.
When I die, I don’t want someone to turn around at my funeral and say “she worked really hard” and if I died tomorrow, I think that would be something that would come up very frequently.
I’m not OK with that being my legacy.
I’ve no idea what this next year holds but I’m pleased to report that I won’t be spending Halloween at Los Angeles Border Control having someone dressed as a skeleton sending me back to my homeland.
Now, that is progress.
Lots of love,
Ness x
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my drivel, I appreciate you being here!
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A great piece of writing as always Nessa! Keep being you ✨
Big hugs to you. So, so much and thank you for sharing your tenderness, your transformations, your important thoughts, and the infinitely beautiful being that is you.