The Timing

 

Over the past 14 years, I have started three different blog sites (four, if you count the time I renamed this one The Peach in the Apple LA). I’ve unpublished all of them, but never The Peach in the Apple, the most charming five words I’ve ever strung together. Like many times before, I’m coming back to this space as an outlet for the creativity that’s finally started to percolate within me again. I’m not going to cross out the Apple and write Georgia now, that’s redundant, The Peach in Georgia, The Peach in the Peach. No. We’re just gonna accept that for five extraordinarily formative years of my life, I was living in the Big Apple and now I’m back in the Peach. Wild.

Timing is a weird thing isn’t it? (I hate using the word thing. I think a high school creative writing teacher shamed me for using ‘thing’ too much and I still haven’t recovered but that has little to do with anything…just know that I hate using the word.) In January of this year, I decided to move back to Georgia after eight years spent in Los Angeles. I began thinking seriously about this when it occurred to me that I was walking into work with jaw tension so intense it felt like my head was going to roll off my neck. The debt I’d accumulated, gotten out of and accumulated again was like a constant nagging mean girl calling me fat, stupid and ugly at all times. I was desperate for change but didn’t see how it could happen unless I jumped off a cliff (metaphorically!). I had nightmares about giving up my beloved apartment, leaving my friends and a city I genuinely loved but when I thought about taking a year to finally and truly figure out my life… the decision was made. By the end of February, I was driving across the country with my pup, Scraps.

Three weeks after we got home, the world was in lockdown.

The timing, huh?

 

For clarity, I’ve accepted it as divine. I am grateful every single day that I have a home to live in, food to eat, parents I honestly get along with, a dog, that I don’t have to worry about rent and that I didn’t qualify for unemployment. This era we’ve been forced to slow down and live in has been a roller coaster. A wooden roller coaster, the kind that give you whiplash and a possible head injury. For me, it began with a goofy, delirious rise (sticking with the roller coaster metaphor here) baking every cake NYTimes told me about and drinking every cocktail I’d ever heard or seen a picture of.  As that phase peaked and I gained 15 pounds, I felt heavy and sad and nasty and bad and, on top of that, an anxiety brought about by the evolving realization about the grim realties we live in, the privilege I have, the atrocities Black people and all People of Color in America and the world face daily, looking at how little I knew and know, learning, reading, educating myself, worrying about November, feeling like I can’t do enough, will never be able to do enough, how do we fix this, we’re pretty much fucked, what are we gonna do, do I have a concussion… all led to the next loop. A much gentler one.

 

Quiet reflection. 

 

I’ve spent the last two months exploring my meditation practice like I never have before. I’ve had major breakthroughs about presence and patience. I’ve been eating cleanly and exercising, not because the mean girl in my head called me fat, but because holy shit, I have a body that works and how fucking AMAZING is that? I’m feeling gratitude for everything. I’m waking up excited. I’m not on Instagram like I was.

 

I am confident that we are going to be okay. We already are okay. I believe that is true. A lot of us are having awakenings; spiritually, socially, career-wise, within our relationships with each other and ourselves. Right now, I am fortifying myself, using this time apart to understand clarity, peace and joy. Yes, JOY. All of this is to say, that I’ve felt called to come back to this space. I won’t make any declarations about how often I’ll be here, but I feel like, at least compared to a once every other year post, it’ll be A LOT more than that. Oh also, I’ve become obsessed with Pinterest…ever heard of it? Yeah, I know, how the fuck did I miss that boat ten years ago, but AHOY! I’m on it now and I love it. I’ve started an Etsy greeting card shop called DumbBasicCrafts, I’m currently making and photographing all that will be available there and will let you know through a blog post when it’s stocked. I made a dress. I revamped brittanyfelton.com, you can find my two short films, Eastbound and Westbound there along with the links to all the other fun things (ew, things) I’ve just mentioned. Mostly, I hope that you will still enjoy reading my words. That they will speak to you and that you will find connection here.

Thank you for reading.

 

Brittany