I used to not want to work.

I used to not want to work.
I just wanted to earn my rest.
Work hard now,
And then you make it.
THEN it’s all worth it.
But until then, it’s just the goodness of pain.
The badge of honor of suffering, starving, longing but depriving.

Look how restricted I can be!
Look!

All as evidence that I’m doing a good job.
That I’m doing it right.
All as the anti-punishment.
The Resistance (with a capital R).

But the truth is,
It would come in waves anyway.
And what I really craved was when it all came crashing down.
Because then I could finally stop resisting.
For a moment.
I got a glimpse of surrender through pure defeat.

But the problem was
I labeled it defeat.
And defeat wasn’t “making it”.
Defeat wasn’t good enough.
Even though honestly,
Defeat
Was the closest I got to making it.
Defeat was the only time I got to eat, and sleep, and fuck.
Defeat was when I got to touch my hunger.
Getting off on how wrong it felt to feed myself.
How wrong it felt to writhe in my churning insides.

How right it felt to BE
Without performance,
Without force.

But then
The curtain would open
And I’d be back on stage.
Stuffing the nausea of my own dishonesty into my gut
Twisting it up in knots.

You know,
The truth is,
I was never very good at performing.
I could never quite keep it hidden.

And yet,
I knew I had to.
So I tried harder.
And the harder I tried the better it felt when defeat came again.
Intensifying the build up to the delicious
Mind-numbing climax.
The let down.
The collapse.

And so,
I thought I wanted permavacation.
I thought I wanted
“Make money while you sleep!!!”
So I could finally relax.
But really
I was just waiting for my next collapse.
I was just waiting for the way off the ride.

HOW DO I GET OFF THIS RIDE???

Disguised in my hard work,
Was escape.
Pure
Avoidance.

And that’s why hard work
(Forceful, pushing, disciplined work)
Never works.
Not really.
Because it’s not about presence.
And so you will never get presence back from it.
Only escapism.

Or just more hard work.

But I don’t want to escape.
Not actually.
I want to create.
To connect.
To conduct magic through the simple act of meeting life and myself simultaneously.

Simultaneously meeting the way life wants to move through me
And the way I (me, my body, this Jessie creature) responds to that.
Like a never ending science experiment.

Ooooo what’s she gonna do now?

I don’t want to ascend past it.
I want to watch it.
Love it.
Dance with it.

I’m feeling more and more
How possible it is
To live from engagement, rather than escape.

From full bodied connection,
Rather than performative isolation.

From curiosity and openness,
Rather than control and fear.

It’s possible.
It’s right here.
And I’m no longer collapsing.