living alone as a woman
please carefully consider the trigger warnings
hi babies!
please love me at my worst came out this week!
if you didn’t tap through my insta story because there were like 45 parts i absolutely do not blame you.
here’s a pic of me signing copies at my local indigo!
and here’s the book right next to margaret atwood and rupi kaur!
even as i’m writing this the next day, i don’t think it’s fully sunk in that my book is in stores. i definitely blacked out and didn’t even remember posting insta stories when i was there 😂
though i haven’t fully digested everything, i still want to say thank you so much for your support! it’s been extremely cool to see people have it in their hands and share poems from it. though having a book in stores and being traditionally published is very cool, i mainly want y’all to read it!
now on to the moon…
la lune
when you’re reading this, the moon will be in aquarius.
i feel like saying “hold on to your hats!” today. with the sun in libra, the moon in aquarius, and mercury retrograde still in libra (all air signs)… things are floaty as heck right now.
this is our collective reminder to tap into our grounding practices. go for a walk, journal, meditate, do something physical that connects you to dear mother earth.
aquarians love to see things differently, so if there’s a problem you’ve been struggling with or something you can’t quite figure out, journal or meditate with daddy aquarius in mind and he’ll help you out.
disclaimer
before i begin today’s topic (i’m writing this while the moon is in capricorn, can you tell? talking like a professor), i just want to disclaim:
i often write things from a woman’s perspective or share things with the conscious purpose of relating to women, but of course no matter what gender you are, you can resonate with feminine energy and the things i’m talking about.
when i say women i am always including trans women. and if you were brought up as a girl but have transitioned or are nonbinary or both i’m thinking about you and the ways in which you can relate to these experiences too.
tl;dr SO MANY PEOPLE can resonate with feminine energy and experiences and i love all of us.
living alone as a woman
tw: domestic violence, sexual assault, r*pe, murder, human trafficking
(honestly this is a very intense topic for a newsletter and i am debating even publishing it… take care of yourself and delete the email or close the window if you think you’ll be triggered)
(seriously)
if you didn’t know, about four months ago, i bought a house!
before i even started looking for a house, i was googling tips about living alone as a single woman, including how to make it look like there’s a man living in your house.
i almost borrowed old work boots from my dad to put on my porch.
but the more time i’ve spent alone, and the more i feel like i’m coming into a new sense of adulthood (a lot of which stems from reparenting my inner child), the more i’ve realized that making it appear like a man lives in my house won’t make me safe.
TRIGGERS BELOW
before i get into this, i just wanna say: i’m not trying to downplay the horribleness of psychopathic murders and random assaults. point blank, men hurt, harass and kill women.
i have been sexually assaulted more than once by men i didn’t know in public places with people around. i have also been sexually assaulted by men i did know in private. i didn’t realize any of the situations were sexual assault until years later. in all of the above situations, being more afraid or more careful wouldn’t have prevented the assault.
this is a tricky topic, and honestly i contradict myself. ultimately, i think my point is that within a patriarchal society, we can only have so much power as women. and it’s really fucking sad. i want us all to fight against fear, but the fact of the matter is that some women have had such horrible experiences at the hands of men that they can’t.
i think i’m just trying to dispel the myth of the random boogie man who’s hiding in your closet and coming to get you? i don’t know. maybe i just watch too many horror movies and this isn’t relatable.
let’s get into what i wrote before i realized i was contradicting myself.
women aren’t safe
every six days in canada, a woman is killed by her intimate partner (source: canadianwomen.org).
in 8 out of 10 r*pe cases, the victim knew the person who r*ped them (source: national sexual violence resource center).
(domestic violence resources for canada and the U.S.)
a lot of us grew up with the idea of “stranger danger,” but now that we have so much more data, we know that the people most likely to hurt us are people we’re already acquainted with.
not to mention the myth of crime–if someone breaks into my house, it’s way more likely to be the result of a lack of community support, not a random man coming to get me.
as a woman who lives alone, i am statistically “safer” than a woman who lives with a man.
i love true crime as much as the next gal, but i think the sensationalization of the mysterious psychopath (which we know is less than 1% of the population) adds to the narrative that women should be afraid most of the time.
fear
the first time i rented an airbnb alone, there was a night where i was literally paralyzed by fear (even though i was with bea). i was in a tiny house with a lot of windows and no curtains, and it was midnight so i couldn’t see outside. i just had this impending sense of doom and thought that somebody was out there.
(more pics of the tiny house in this post)
even if someone was out there, i eventually fell asleep and nothing happened.
a few years ago, i thought someone was in my closet and drove to the sobey’s parking lot in terror (no one was in my closet). when i was a teenager, i freaked out when someone was parked outside my house (i don’t even remember what happened after, but i’m still alive). for the longest time, i routinely checked under the bed. i’ve had this unshakeable fear that a random man is coming to get me my whole life.
the more i stayed in airbnbs by myself last year, the more i questioned this fear, and the more i realized that 1) it wasn’t useful and 2) it was keeping me small.
living alone as a woman shouldn’t be scary
fear is used to control women.
isn’t it funny that, despite having heard all of the statistics, i still had the gut instinct that i would be safer if i bought a house with a man?
so much of my socialization, directly and indirectly, ingrained the belief that being alone is unsafe and that men can protect me.
this masterclass of fear reaches so many parts of our lives.
the movie taken taught me that i shouldn’t travel alone because i would be sold into trafficking, when i know that most victims of human trafficking are manipulated, not abducted.
my dad told me the first thing i should do when i move into my house is get a security system (but as an expert student of fear, i had already booked an installation).
i don’t even know where i learned the belief that living on the first floor of a building is dangerous, but wanting a dog outweighed it eventually.
maybe it’s the patriarchy teaching us that we need men to survive, maybe it’s evolutionary because men used to protect women from wild animals (though now that i’m thinking about it, that story is probably a tool of the patriarchy too), maybe it’s that the myth of crime has such a hold on us to keep the police funded and in power. maybe instilling fear in women, especially white women, is a tool used to uphold white supremacy.
maybe it’s intersectional as hell.
maybe all of the above.
no matter what way you look at it, this fear disempowers women and prevents us doing what we really want.
i am bad at conclusions
if you have an aversion to doing specific things, or think something is particularly dangerous, it’s good to question it.
where did that idea of danger come from? did someone tell you a story about it? is it statistically likely to happen to you? will being afraid prevent it from happening?
i’m not saying throw caution to the wind and stop being careful–checking that your doors are locked is generally a good idea. not walking on dark streets alone at night, also a good idea. but the more you question where your ingrained fears are coming from, the more you can do things from a place of empowered practicality rather than immobilizing fear.
this is a shitty conclusion, but if men are going to hurt us no matter what we do… we might as well do what we want?
now that i live alone in a big ol’ house and have faced a lot of my demons, i am proud to say that i don’t get scared often. i bought bed frames that are impossible to hide under and i spend more time reassuring bea that no one’s there when she randomly barks.
a few years ago, i distinctly remember saying, “i don’t think i could live in a house alone, i would be terrified.”
i’m proud to say that i’m not terrified.
poetry prompt
most of the time i forget that the initial point of this newsletter was to share poetry and prompts.
you know what time it is, get out your journal/notes app, we are writing a poem. and as always, please comment your poem if you write one!
prompt: write about letting go of fear
one two
i let go of you
three four
no one’s at the door
five six
sometimes sticks are just sticks
seven eight
i’m going to sleep great
nine ten
i am more powerful than men
(honestly i have no explanation for this… if it made you chuckle, good. and yes the sticks are a reference to the blair witch project)
and now, a tiktok
it’s still release week so i’m going to leave you with the tiktok of me looking for please love me at my worst in a bookstore!
at the very least, i hope you found this relatable or thought-provoking… if it was neither, honestly let me know and i will steer clear of these topics in the future.
if you want to share your poem, come to a better conclusion than i did, or send me accolades for please love me at my worst (jk but i will gladly accept them), leave me a comment!
if you want to read the past *exclusive* new and full moon updates and get the next one on october 20, along with a full moon astrology reading in the comments, check out paid subscription options here (or just subscribe for free if you haven’t already):
this is usually where i ask you to share the letter, but unless you are really well acquainted with someone, you may not know what their triggers are… so please be very considerate of who you share this with.
stay tuned for next week, i’m going to write about my experience with microdosing (and hopefully it will be less dark)!
xoxo
m
what a strong newsletter! thanks fir sharing!
as for the prompt:
Your anger hits me like a deer in headlights
im back between sibling and parent
separate and support thats my role
your anger takes me back
and all i want is to comfort and love you
the fear is what i notice most
its why i react
i fear you wont love me
i fear your only choice will be to amp up your firm of attack
i fear that if i leave you ill never feel this love again
but your anger feels eternal and my soul is feeling sapped.