A Happy New Year and Holidays! Here’s to Rest, Transformation, and Compassion.

Hi Everyone,


I’m glad to be back with all y’all. I hope you are having a wonderful start to your new year!


It always bums me out that I can’t hear y’alls thoughts on this medium. I’m trying to think of additional platforms to allow more dialogue, but it’s a work in progress! Let me know if you have ideas!


Additionally, I hope you had a wonderful holiday season. Holidays can be tough for a varied range of experiences, and they also can be fulfilling in all the connection they can represent. In all the multiplicities that your experience may be, I wish you joy and peace.


As we look to the new year, I have been feeling a sense of pause and reflection. I have been looking back at what lessons we carry with us into the new year; as well as looking at the truth of our present, and the hope for our future. I don’t wish to speak for everyone today, but I’ve had a rough year. My year in particular has marked many tough lessons that have been chasing me for a while, but finally, for the first time, I feel a sense that just maybe I have learned something — that just maybe these lessons have finally integrated into my being and into action. We’re still getting there, gotta work through the burnout too. But slowly we are arriving.


Here are some key lessons learned, what they mean to me, and the actions I will take to honor them.


1. Letting Go of Things Which Breed Despair


This one is marked with grief for me. There were many situations in the past year where I said goodbye to individuals, relationships, jobs, friends, and ways of being. I was taught that to claim my grounding and healing, there would be certain people I could no longer carry with me. I wish I could carry them always, and in my heart, I will, but when even solid relationships begin to dim the fire in my heart, when I can feel burnout creeping in, goodbye is necessary. In fact, there were some situations where I held on for too long and I’m still recuperating from it.

It starts with acknowledging that grief I talked about. Grieving the relationship I thought I could have, the expectations I had for myself, but most of all, grieving the fact that I still love many of these people even while goodbye was still necessary. That is also to say that while relationships and their purpose change, the future remains an opportunity to meet again.


Most of all I honor my lesson by continually standing by my decision to create space and love for myself when these relationships could not. I honor my letting go by claiming my inner space to love myself.


2. Embracing the Imperfection of Life


Perfectionism has always been something I struggled with, and still do. When I dropped out of college — the second time — constantly running through my mind was how I could be the “best.” The best in my degree, the best at emotional availability, the best friend, the best partner, the best in my career, the list goes on. My lovely therapist, who I still work with, asked me, “By whose bar are you measuring yourself?” Which of course was my own, my own internalized expectations. But even if it was my own, what was it rooted in? Was it rooted in consideration and compassion for my varying capacities day to day? Was it rooted in having affirming dialogue with myself? No.


This was the first year that my inner self-talk about what I wanted to achieve and work toward began to feel insurmountable. In other words, the expectations I had set for myself were not achievable; I was not going to be able to deliver and perform as I would have liked. And when that happens, it’s always a dialogue with the monster of failure. On multiple occasions this year, I sat with the monster. And you know what, turns out I’m still here.


I realize now, to honor this lesson, I will keep embracing imperfection. Realizing the only timeline I can honor is one that takes into account care, whether that’s care for myself, others, others’ learning, or care over a lifetime. It is an invitation to move at the pace at which I can, and ride the wave of its fluctuation day by day. And I wrestle with that. I wrestle with the idea of this imaginary punishment I constructed in my head. But I’m not willing to punish myself for slowing down, not if it means leaning into accountability, intentionality, and authenticity.


3. Getting in Touch With My Intuition


This one was interesting to me! It was a discovery of how grounded, trusted choices in my body feel vs. anxious impulse felt in my body. Classically, I am a hyper-vigilant type of queer. Often waiting for the criticism to hit or a shoe to drop. But none came. And if it did, it was water off a duck’s back.


I can’t remember where I got this saying now but, intuition does not come in the form of anxious impulse. Conversely, intuition comes in the form of softness. It was in moments of grief or despair that I would sit in my little puddle of misery — and yes misery loves company, but it was at times a quite lonely year — that I would ask myself, is this helpful? Does feeling hopeless feel good or helpful? And sometimes I felt like I was just losing the game of life. But how did I ground myself? Luckily, and I think this is a very me experience and I can’t sit there for too long. I’m too in love with the idea of all the awe that is in the world, too in love with the idea of all the endlessly cool people to meet and learn from, too in love with the feeling of good connection. That in those moments when I felt disconnected, there was a quiet calm, or maybe a quiet peace telling me to be patient.


That inner voice began to remind me of my rootedness, reminded me of previous lessons, and reminded me this moment was just a fixed tiny point in the grand story of my life. So even when life felt hard, it told me I had to show up the next day, that I could keep going.


My intuition also came in the form of fantastical dreams, as it always has. It also came in seeking advice from my elders and also the future elders (which is to say some of you little bubs that have stopped by Luna y Sol). Listening, waiting to act, and trusting the quieter feeling. It’s a tough one because I usually want to listen to my more indulgent raucous voices, but it’s a balance – and one that I continue to pursue.


4. Despair vs. Realism


And finally, a thought I have turned over multiple times, like a pebble in my shoe; was it a good year? Did I have a good time?


So often throughout this year, there were deep, deep tears and loneliness. Yet somehow it was not a bad year. Somewhere in me, I am so thankful for my growth. These were lessons that had been chasing me for years, things I could not fully digest until now, finally filling me with some sense of arrival.


I finally was able to dance in the storm. Each up and down, I took in stride. Because frankly, I didn’t want to drown in it. I could not accept despair. And the reality is, life is uncertain, there is suffering, and there is hardship. But you keep going, you have to keep going. It was the realization that so long as I had a vision for tomorrow, I’d keep showing up. So long as there are people to be connected to in the future, I’d be there. It was learning patience with my circumstances. That perhaps I would not feel all my relief tomorrow, or the day after that, or the day after that. But relief sometimes came in such beautifully small and tender moments. And my heart remains so happy to hold on to those precious gems of memories.
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The big picture is sometimes scary: not enough love, not enough kindness, too much hate, too much judgment. But in those small moments by myself and with the people I love, I laughed, I danced, I sang, I made art, I got messy. That’s one of my most favorite parts, letting life be messy. Because sometimes getting it right feels too hard. But the fact is if you’re leaning into love and the desire to be loved, I think we all just might be okay.


My despair did not save me. I can feel the uncertainty on the horizon, too. I hear how easy it is to listen too — indulgent all on its own. And yet, trusting you are worth loving and in whatever amount that you love yourself, despite it all, is the key. I don’t care anymore how awful or messed up I think I am. I’m finally giving myself the permission to say I have enough love in my heart even during the hard times; that the solitude of my own love is enough.


If there’s something to lean into this coming year, lean into the fullness of you, my dearies. If you want something to fight and wrestle with, don’t let it be that you weren’t enough — let it be because you didn’t love yourself enough, even when you felt all the love still in your heart.


In my darkest moments, the gentlest balm to place on my heart this year was the permission slip made from letters of my love from my own heart. A permission slip spelling out that I am allowed to truly see myself for who I am, to be my own witness, to be my own understanding, and to hold myself as enough. That I was enough, just for loving being me. It’s what helps me to get back up, and I’m grateful that I slowly return to myself.


These are just some thoughts from this past year. I wish you all a happy New Year.

With radical love,
David Garcia