I’m a writer.

That’s what’s been true even before the labels, the careers, and even during the unemployment.

Yet I forget. I open my journal or notebook, and I start creating lists instead, things I need to do, things I want to brainstorm. Goals I want to achieve. People I need to reach out to.

I feel a push and pull, often. My creativity unhinged wanting to come out, and then my practical self chiming in asking for purpose and direction, but what about the lists, the things I need to get done. What’s the point of writing anyway?

As I looked around the coffee shop I was sitting, I spilled my coffee on my laptop half way through this writing. Someone asked to hold my dog while I cleaned up, I said “no, it’s fine. I got this”, feeling disconnected wondering, “why didn’t I let them help me?”

Making Lists by Mayra Leen

Maybe I forgot about art 

Maybe I forgot how to be 

Maybe I traded all my imagination for practicality 

Where do these lists come from?

What made me think I’m in charge or I’m in control? 

I’m a child of the universe. It provides for me. 

World made me believe I’m alone and no one will want me unless I’m self-sufficient 

Yet everyone likes being wanted, needed, desired, being the source of satisfaction for another 

I realized yesterday that maybe at the root of all the issues is the idea that connection is frivolous. 

So we don’t make time. 

Instead we make assumptions. 

Because it’s more practical to make assumptions. 

But I don’t ask for help. 

Because I can do it alone. 

And that robs me each time of a chance for connection, 

A deepening with a friend or a stranger. 

Self-sufficiency is the curse of our generation

Where did it come from? 

Burdened parents who didn’t feel like enough. 

Who were told they not only needed to raise their kids alone, but that the child’s behavior was a reflection of them, and that only if they could do that while working full time with a home that looks like a model house, are they enough

No one could do that because we weren’t meant to have full-time working parents raising kids alone. How is that even possible? 

So the kids had to be self-sufficient, be the least of a burden as possible. 

Be as good as possible.

Because only those kids are worthy of existing, of love. 

No one told anyone that it makes sense that this isn’t working for anyone. 

We were born like puzzle pieces, meant to connect to one another and only then find an even brighter and better mosaic.

Every piece important and necessary and unique. 

And connected to another. 

But then we started competing. 

We started setting a bar for one another of what good looks like. 

And we had to because we didn’t learn another way to love. 

We had to set a standard, so we could then know who to love.

That’s how we were loved. 

How else? 

All we wanted was to love

And be loved. 

But no one told us we can just do it without the standards, without the evaluations, without the hoops to jump through. 

It’s simple. 

It’s a choice. 

It’s a presence without fear, without attachment, without requirements. 

Just presence, curiosity, and acceptance. 

That’s what I want to be. Here, now, and forever more. 

But the lists keep coming.

Thank you for reading, and maybe for even feeling this with me. I look forward to sharing more writing like this with you.

None of this feels like it makes sense, I’m talking about art, writing, practicality, self-sufficiency, shadow aspects, and I want to share without explanation, but I want to be understood, too.

I’m still left wondering if this is art or not.

These are some of the darker aspects of me I’m a lot more comfortable sharing now. They are fully and wholly part of me. I’m learning these parts of me aren’t broken, but a reflection of the generation, the society, the life I live in, and it’s the parts of me that help me find compassion and depth in all the work I do.

I’m expanding.

The journey of “bad girl” this last year has been profound. Amplified by a really dark episode in my life which I am now seeing as my Dark Feminine Awakening. All this has unleashed a beautiful persona, a more full human, and a Dominatrix calling that has felt so natural and good. If you’d like to inquire about 1:1 sessions, send me an email at priestess@mayraleen.com or see my experiences page.

Would love to know what questions you have about my Dark Fem Awakening. I think it deserves its own post. Let me know what you’re curious about in the comments.

Wishing you a more expansive, shame free life.

much love,

Mayra