you can't keep ghosts in cages

Friends,

It’s a Tuesday afternoon. The sun is finally out. I feel like it’s such a privilege to say that. The sun is out, and I’m sitting outside on a patio. I’m drinking a chai latte, and I forgot to put on SPF this morning - which means, we might be seeing that sneaky springtime burn later on this evening.

I’m listening to my favourite, Suki’s Memoir of a Sparklemuffin. I hate the title, but I love each and every song. I text my friend - “I think this entire album is about her being in love with someone who has some sort of major substance abuse issue.”

I realized something. My mental health always declines a bit once spring arrives. My sister tells me it’s because it’s a period of transition. And I couldn’t agree more. It’s the same feeling I had when I was getting ready to leave Rome last year. It’s that feeling of graduation, of completing some sort of chapter in your life - and now you don’t know what lies ahead. The unknown.

When people used to ask me what I wrote about - my go-to answer was always, “love.” But now, I’ve changed my answer. It’s not just “love” - but it’s the complexities of love. The shortcomings of relationships. And all of the fears that are interwoven in between. What stops us from pursuing love, and what made us stop believing in it in the first place.

But it’s also about the relationship to self.

For so long, I was so scared that I would let everything I’ve lost define me. Or that, it was all anyone would see of me. That I was broken. That I was fragmented.

In one of my new favourites, Georgia Towes’ “Nobody Asked For This” - she writes, “I had a therapist once tell me I couldn’t keep ghosts in cages.”

My heart still races every time I pass by OFM’s. And I do an inner eye-roll every time I walk by The Bar.

You can’t keep ghosts in cages.

But, the sun is shining. The sun feels warm. The girls at my favourite skincare store know me by name. The barista knows that I take my brewed coffee black. My pen has ink. There’s breath in body, food in my fridge, fresh tulips on my living room table, and so many blank pages left in this lavender, leather-bound journal.

And I can say this, with full confidence:

I will choose this present, over choosing that past.

One million times over, over, and over again.

And I think of the generations of women who have come before me. The women who didn’t have the luxury of sipping on a chai latte on a sunny patio, on a random Tuesday afternoon. The sun beating its warm rays down on them, with an empty journal open on top of their laps. I think of how they were always doing things for other people. For their parents. For their children. For their spouses. For their households. For the pleasing of others. And I think of how my Aunt messaged me a few weeks ago (re: bar drama), and said:

“Remember, he doesn’t own that bar. And he doesn’t own you.”

That’s real power, isn’t it?

So, to answer my own question - who are you, when it’s just you?

I am free.

Spring is here, and I’m ready for change.

I hope you are, too.

Love,

Emily