When the Universe takes the trash out

Thank you, Universe.

Apr 11, 2024

I lost a client last week.

They emailed Wednesday that my contract would be up Friday. It was so unprofessional (to let me go over email and with only 3 days notice) it took my breath away.

And it made me angry.

There’s really only two ways to go with anger, or any emotion: in or out.

With anger, I go in. I always have.

I see this as good. If you internalize, you don’t hurt the people around you.

But the flip-side, the not-so-great-side? You can hurt yourself.

When I keep an angry feeling in, my body eventually tells the story: anxiety, depression, breakouts, migraines. Sometimes just a massive pit in my stomach that weighs me down.

And this is where art and writing have saved me, given me an outlet and a way to transmute my pain into something else. To externalize. To bridge my inner self with the outer world.

I’ve been journaling like crazy this week. Literally putting down all the angry thoughts that come to mind throughout the day. Something about pen to paper feels final to me. I write it down and the feeling is honored. It’s real. I don’t have to keep ruminating.

And that’s the worst part of anger, isn’t it? It’s a chokehold, a vine-y weed that grows over everything. That shit will take over if you let it.

Not me. I won’t let it. I got things to do. I have art to make and poems to write and plants to water and walks to take. I have flowers to admire and a dog to pet. I have people to love and sunshine to sit in.

So I put some more words down and emailed this client back.

“I understand you have had a budget set back and have to let me go, but here’s what I would have loved…”

I was respectful and I spoke my mind and I let it go.

Or, I’m letting it go.

You know what they say, out with the old, in with the new.

The Universe took the trash out for me this week. I’m grateful. And I’m expectant. What new will come? Maybe you?

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The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To them…a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, and create – so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, their very breath is cut off from them. They must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency they are not really alive unless they are creating.

— Pearl S. Buck

*edited with they/them pronouns

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From my desk: