hi life

I saw "Hi Life" scrawled on a brick wall and it completely stopped me. I wanted to say hi back. It felt like life was actually trying to get my attention and I'd been too busy to notice.

An unlived life tiptoes in and you don't see it coming. Living becomes barely existing. Work becomes one long day on repeat. You use your days off just to recover from being overworked and somehow that's supposed to be enough.

I went to Kingston to spend time with Turi's adopted family: Len & Pat. Their backyard is a secret green oasis with a bird feeder that never stops. Woodpeckers, chickadees, cardinals coming and going. Watching and listening to the rhythm of the birds I felt complete peace. There's so much beauty in ordinary moments like this. You just have to slow down enough to see it.

And I hadn't. I'd been working 16hr days letting scarcity convince me this was just how it had to be. This was suppose to be the achievement. The better life.

What's it all for if it costs everything.

I'd been asking myself that question for months. Earlier that summer on a long weekend Monday I was completely exhausted and made myself a promise: no work, no screens, no productivity.

I put on headphones and wandered the city with my camera letting my feet carry me towards High Park. I sat with a book and microdosed some mushrooms. On my way back home, I slowed down and watched a blue heron bathe in the sunlight and watched bees move from flower to flower.

I'd been playing Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill album on repeat and one song kept pulling me back: "Perfect." While it played I found myself dancing with my shadow on the sidewalk. And suddenly felt this wave of forgiveness wash over me for my younger self. She did her best with what she had and what she knew. And because she tried I was here.

When did I lose that? When did I stop trying the way she did? When did I start believing in the scarcity that this is the best life has to offer me. She had no proof things would work out but she persisted anyway. Somewhere along the way I forgot how. Lost my sense of possibility and let bitterness replace my childlike curiosity.

One day Turi and I were sitting at the table having lunch and talking about how I hold myself back when he suddenly pulled up a video of me at SXM. I immediately burst into tears. I felt this intense love for my younger self. Like I was looking at someone else. I barely recognized her.

She was working 2-3 jobs to get me here and hadn't yet learned it was a trauma response and scarcity was driving every decision. But she was still so full of life. Still believing.

That's what scarcity does - it blinds you to your own light while you're living it. I don't want to do that anymore.

I was walking down Queen St. towards Ossington as the sun was setting. Headphones on feeling the main character energy when tears started to form. I was overcome with gratitude. Because I could feel. Scarcity had jumped back in but I had learned what it was to feel. And I won't give that up again.

What you focus on becomes your reality and I've focused on scarcity for too long. On what's missing. On what's not enough. On smallness. I'm focusing on my unlimited potential now. The kind we all have before the world starts chipping away at us. I want to see where that takes me.

There's a line from the unbearable beauty that's been staying with me: we become what we long for or what we most fear. I've been becoming my fear for too long. Letting it shape me into something small and safe. I'm no longer betraying my own possibilities.

Here's to not leaving your life unlived. Here's to feeling again. To noticing the birds and the bees and the light as it changes. To saying hi back to life and actually meaning it. To choosing possibility.

Our adventure is waiting.

Chanelle