I end this year here — at this vantage point of change, the precipice of expansion — initiation without a final destination. where the journey becomes both the launching pad and the place of eternal rest.

everything that could possibly keep me attached to my past identity has conveniently made an exit — effortless and flamboyant. I say “thank you” when nothing else makes sense. I do not rush to make meaning out of this empty space. there is no need to fill this gap, no need for performance. there is no one to impress. nothing to prove. nothing that keeps me bound to self-assertiveness as a form of defence. I would be lying if I said that it didn’t feel lonely sometimes. but when an old identity dies, everything attached to it has to go as well. old beliefs, patterns, circumstances, people, self-perception, attachment to outcomes.

I would be lying if I played aloof at a time like this — the only thing that was keeping me stationed to this timeline was also what was bringing me the most joy. the promise of a safe landing. but predictability can also lead to stagnancy, and we forget that. I’m so used to giving that I never even considered asking myself what would it mean, once and for all — to choose myself. I got so cozy in predictable comfort that I didn’t allow myself the infiniteness of dreaming. which would mean that I’d have to be okay being the one who triggers people with my capacity to hold it all.

it’s much easier to self-blame. “it has to be me because this person could never do this to anyone else. so i must’ve been the problem.” but people are not made of absolutes, they contain multitudes.

I didn’t want to rise alone, you see. I love my friends too much. I wanted to bring them along with me.

quoting my previous newsletter, building endurance for relational sovereignty:

You don’t have to retrace your steps and move backwards into old versions of yourself just to reach someone who is not yet ready to rise with you. You are allowed to stay rooted where you’ve grown.

so here I am, trying to take my own advice and do just that: stay rooted. however far I grow from here on will be out of the labor that I pour into myself, first and foremost. towards building a life that feels true and futures i’m able to access in the now. I can’t claim these dreams as being wholly mine. they’re whispers from my ancestors urging me to stop resisting change and karmic retribution.

it’s extremely uncomfortable here and that is enough proof to entice me into actually doing it.

my bestfriend, who I loved queerly more than all of my past lovers combined, who I trusted with my whole heart more than i could ever trust my own parents, ghosted me in the most devastatingly arrogant way possible this past week. i’m trying to understand, through this process of maintaining relational flexibility, what it means to build endurance for broken trust of this magnitude.

allowing yourself to grieve the profound loss of companionship whilst remaining steady in your integrity so no amount of external harm, avoidance or neglect can stray you away from your path — reckoning with how powerful it is to be the one activating people by mirroring their shadows back to themselves. willing to hold all the dimensions without looking away, knowing well that most people aren’t equipped to hold such density.

he’d often remind me, “mei, this isn’t on you. people run away when they can no longer face themselves and you’re the mirror they refuse to look at. looking at you would mean they’d have to look at themselves clearly and fear makes people do terrible things. none of this is on you.” when i’d tell him about all the times my loved ones left me without a word, a conversation or a proper goodbye.

a past version of me would’ve probably crumbled down by now, knowing someone who shares my fears and longing for care, who knows me so intimately has acted out exactly the way they swore they could never. past me might’ve seen this as the end of the world but surprisingly, I feel… free.

maybe because I understand now that a partial truth being activated in somebody else doesn’t automatically illustrate it as the entire picture.

embodying the fullness of an experience and holding all the nuances of being in relation is how we break cycles of harm.

this ending is also an opening — an entering. I believe that communally, we need to stop normalising abandonment.

maybe this is also Saturn’s way forward in how this mirroring works through me. how it demands more of people. when your foundation is built on false narratives, it eventually falls through. at some point, escapism runs dry. this was the final signature of a year that has already demanded so much of me, the most challenging year of my adult life so far.

I feel so ready to emerge now. I have let go of all attachments.

here is where I release every past version of myself that has led me to this day. sculpting me into a mosaic of earthly groundedness and heart-centred courage — the sign of a leader who isn’t fuelled by followers but by their own internal fire of wanting to jump first.

I am willing to take the risk because there is nothing to lose anymore (literally!). everything that needed to fade away, has already turned into ash.

now is when I jump — into the depths of the ocean — into the vastness of the void which calls out my name — into endless love.

remembering that.. every hater is a lover first.

with all my love,
mei

• I am holding my last communal offering of the year, a Visionary Grief Circle on Saturday, the 23rd of November. fill this form if you feel ready for grief work and would like to be a part!

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