Ai Yai Yai
Fuckin’ A.
Mid-2021. Summer solstice. Capricorn Full Moon, and four planets in retrograde. Back in Lockdown.
This last month has been a shit-show.
So many things have changed around me and challenged my lines of comfort and security.
Vietnam is back in serious lockdown. We can’t go outside, walk in parks, eat out, meet outside, everything is back indoors. It threatens the comfort I absolutely grew accustomed to and took for granted. Unfortunately. Each day inside has pushed my mental health to a familiar brink, reminiscent of the last lockdown in 2020. It is horrifying to think of the pandemic’s hold on the planet, how time loses its meaning as the virus presses on, pausing our lives indefinitely. The question of my purpose and fulfillment presents itself each day as I sit alone in the house, biding my life away.
A staggering number of my friends and integral community has gone. Sofia back in Spain, Grace is back in Ireland, Brendan has moved on to Thailand, Lindsay’s status here has been seriously threatened, Marisse is returning to South Africa and now Bronze tells me he’s headed for Europe in two months. I’m dumbfounded. Our relationship has been through absolute hell in the last three months. My body is so stressed through these changes that my period is almost two weeks off. It’s alarming, and heavily overwhelming.
As for me, the entire trajectory of my life is thrown. I’ll be 25 next month, in three weeks.
25.
I have no idea what the future has in store anymore. If I’ll stay in Vietnam, if I’ll be able to revisit the US, if I’ll end up in Europe with Bronze, if we’ll make it work and last. There’s been so much turbulence its hard to count on anything.
And what do I want? Through this pause I come up empty, and feel more lost than ever.
I thought what I wanted was so clear. To live a freeing, creative, international life. I still do, but the details fog every time I try to hone in.
What am I even qualified to do, that I would do?
I have this aching feeling I might end up back in the part-time service industry. Its not bad, but theres no room for growth when it comes to jobs, as opposed to careers.
My career is in art. But my jobs are for money. This is the compartmentalization I’ve long adopted and thought I accepted. But as I get older, it just worries me.
So how do I align with my higher purpose? I mean, what the fuck do I do? This is my panicked question.
Taken from Marisse's balcony, HCMC, Vietnam
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