Note to Future Self: May 2025
You are not a half person so it’s okay to desire wholes.
May 2025
S,
I hope you’ve finally internalised the words of Khalil Gibran’s Do Not Love Half Lovers. It’s the poem that made you first appreciate the beauty of poetry but also taught you so much. Those are bite sized lessons packed in every sentence which you’re easily able to articulate and share with people you love and care about, but find difficult to incorporate for yourself. Intellectualising is easy, the practice of it: always difficult.
I hope by now you believe you deserve it too. Know that there is no space for halves anymore.
No Half Lovers. No Half Truths. No Half Ideas And No Half Friends. You are not a half person so it’s okay to desire wholes.
Your relationships haven’t been the best. Perhaps that’s changed now because in May 2024; you finally acknowledged your patterns and the parts of yourself you were/are deeply ashamed of. You admire self-absorbed-driven people because you’ve never learnt to put yourself first in your own life. And by osmosis you’ve subconsciously wondered whether some of that self-absorption will percolate down to you. We’ve tested this out for our entire adult life and found that it hasn’t.
Maybe you’ve moved to the higher order problem of testing what happens around if you do put yourself first ? I hope you have managed to gather the courage to untangle from all relationships that aren’t serving you anymore. It doesn’t have to be ugly; it can be a silent release. If you’re untangling, you probably weren’t important to begin with and in the cacophony of the daily perhaps they won’t even notice that you’re gone.
I hope you held on to the courage to continue to not cop out. The freedom you’ve experienced since 2023 has felt like an unshackling you didn’t know you needed. Your identity is no longer about your work or competence. And something about that is extremely powerful and liberating. Hold on to that feeling even if the circumstances have changed.
Your aspirations today for a life well lived is the ability to be flexible. To work a 100 hour week when required. Go to bed at 8 pm because you feel like it, have a beach day midweek because you are having a bad day and need the ocean cleanse. To be able to make time for things and people that truly matter in your life. To have a community to share the smallest joys with including plucking fresh basil from your balcony to garnish Turkish eggs.
I don’t expect that you’re going to be tired of the creek walks, marveling at all the forest cover and green Goa has to offer. And the spectacular sunsets on the beach. I hope you’re still finding yourself singing unprovoked at the top of your voice.
Ideally, by this time next year your practice of writing and yoga would have deepened. Both these things have been a source of joy and of understanding yourself. If you’ve been unable to keep up, know you can always begin again. Restart- because these are things that immediately make you happy.
Cut yourself 30% of the slack you allow everyone else in your life and I think no matter where you are and what you’re doing. You’re going to be fine :)
Muchlove
S of May 2024
Your writing is a beautifully crafted tapestry of self-reflection and growth. It captures the essence of striving for wholeness in life and relationships. It’s a compelling reminder to prioritize oneself and find joy in life’s simple pleasures. Truly inspiring, it resonates deeply with the universal journey towards authenticity and fulfillment. Thank you for sharing such a powerful and uplifting narrative.
Lovely wriitng. .William Butler Yeats speaks of yin and yang and of rwo people as the egg and yolk ..that form a whole orate in a shell. WBY3says that people.arw only incomplete halves..and need to find their other compl3mwntary halves..wonder what Gibran would say to that. You should get them to talk to each other