I have spent this month (so far) pressing my cheek up against a great wall of moss; looking into the eyes of a past lover and remembering; smelling the sweet scent of jasmine and orange blossoms; making art that is for my eyes only; taking long, aimless walks to be with my thoughts, feeling weather on my skin; becoming hoarse from spirited shouts invoking a free Palestine; feeling the weight and labor involved in recalibrating my entire life and still somehow experiencing the hope and promise of spring.
There are a lot of things ending in my life currently. I am shrugging off iterations of myself like an old, worn coat. There has been a lot of pain in this process as I feel the loss of things, things that I used to really want, that previously felt so good to me, that were so good to me. Sometimes I find myself wishing I could go back to the way those wants felt to me before—the comfort and excitement of fiending for them, the hot hunger in my belly that propelled me to have them. I’ve been missing the certainty of those desires, that cosy feeling that I would always want and love and need those things.
I’ve talked so much about pleasure in my life but never about what happens when your pleasure changes, when you lose interest in wanting something that you’ve wanted for so long. Intuitively I know that the lack of wanting what I used to want is carving out space for new objects of my desire so that the cycle can begin again. I guess it’s been hard to remember who I am without all of the wanting that used to move me. At the moment, I’m having trouble knowing what to do with that grief, how to hold it alongside what is trying to bloom inside of me.
During this time, I’ve found myself trying to convince myself to want again what I no longer want. Even while experiencing a visceral ‘no’ in my body, I still try to find (even manufacture) the feeling that once said “I want you.” Because things would be so much easier if I were to stay with those old desires. Because I have erected altars to them, prepared rooms in my heart that kept them safe and warm. Because I’ve built my life around certain wants; they have made me who I am. Without them, I am unmoored.
Perhaps what I’m looking for in staying with a faded want is the familiarity and simplicity of who I was when I first discovered it and the ease of maintaining it. I know that trying to force-feed myself a want that is no longer tenable is a kind of violence I am enacting against myself. I know that it is a pointless, fruitless endeavor. I know that what I’m really trying to do is soothe the parts of me that are afraid to meet the person I might be without the familiar anchors of desire holding me down.
This month, amongst many other things, I’ll be trying to move on from coercing myself to want what no longer has life in them, what no longer brings life to me.
I made this playlist inspired by the sides of wanting and unwanting I’m currently occupying. On it, I put songs from Park Hye Jin, Broken Social Scene, Infinite Bisous, and Charlotte Day Wilson.
If you’re a paid subscriber (I appreciate you!) you’ll find the playlist below. If you’ve joined Big Time Sensuality at the free tier and want to enjoy this month’s playlist and other sharings soon to come, become a paid subscriber to support the labor of love I do here.
Sending you lots of love and big floral feelings.