Holding everything in one hand

[Note: this post was originally published on April 23, 2024 date] 

Finding balance in the chaos

 I have been remiss in posting to Substack for a while now. About as long as it took me to build this creation I’ve been working on for my business. It’s a product + service I’ve been pouring my heart and soul into for the last 6 months. I apologize for languishing that long.  

Now that I’ve finally come up for air, I was thinking I’d be able to share how exciting it is to launch a new creation into the world! However, life had other plans, so now I’m precariously trying to hold everything in one hand.  

I’m holding the joy and excitement of my new thing going out for it’s very first spin around the block to help make it better for when it’s ready to go public. And I’m also holding so much grief and anxiety because we are now having to search for a new rental and move house at the same time. Our home is owned by someone else, and they want to sell it. Their choice, our problem. 

We’ve lived in this place for many years. It’s not a fancy place, but it’s where my husband and I held our wedding reception several years ago. It’s where we’ve grown stronger together. It's where I healed from burnout. This is a special place, a special neighborhood, and we are grieving the forced change. 

The image is from the overlook near my soon-to-be-old house with my favorite tree. This is where I healed my heart after burnout. I will miss this place so much.
2025 update: I still miss this place. It's etched into my being, but not being there is hard.

Everyone we know who is a long-term renter has been through this. We are just another little family that has experienced a change that they didn’t ask for. And the timing is ... challenging. 

It’s a big, scary thing to put a creation out into the world and allow people to react to it. Every creator out there has some idea of this feeling. It’s exciting, but scary. This feeling sits on the knife edge of excitement and anxiety. It wavers back and forth, sometimes more scary, sometimes more exciting. It’s a big feeling to hold on to. 

As a subscriber to The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad, the topic of holding both the beautiful and the painful in one hand comes up a lot. I am grateful for the discussion there as I now navigate this excitement and grief at the same time. I am reminded to see this as a new beginning as much as it is an ending and to embrace the new feelings and circumstances while also holding space for the grief and sadness I am experiencing. 

I will be sharing more about the big, exciting new thing I’m creating soon. For now, I hope this gives you some idea of what I’ve been up to and that I’m not done, I just needed to go into hibernation for a bit while something new was created!