Showing all posts tagged space

In Culture, Identity, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Politics, Relationships, Writing

Farewell 2025

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

In December, I like to take some time to look back over the year and reflect. Normally, this feels peaceful and inspiring. This year, not so much. It feels like searching through shit, hoping to find a bit of elusive gold to make the process worthwhile.

I wish the news weren’t so bleak. I find myself longing for a pre-fascist world, one where common sense, intelligence, kindness, and decency are valued again. Where generative AI is a pipe dream, not the digital asbestos we have now that infects everything and costs a fortune and makes cheating easy and weakens our human connection to art and creativity.

But there are good things, too. My kids coming home from university to spend a couple weeks under the same roof as Jason and I again, after spending this entire fall grieving for the end of the beautiful stage that was raising our family. William has a new girlfriend, so we’ve been getting to know her, and experiencing that unique phenomenon where your heart can stretch to include someone who wasn’t there before.

For 2025, I decided to not publish anything. I made it a year to focus on a new writing project, my murder mystery novel A Body at the Fair, which I hoped to finish by December. I haven’t finished, but it’s okay. One of the best things about being an independent publisher is that I can be flexible with my scheduling. I don’t have an agent asking when I’ll be turning in my book, or an imprint setting a date and holding me to that deadline.

When I watched the limited series Task this fall and did a rewatch of Mare of Easttown, by the same creator, I remembered that good work takes time. Our culture has become obsessed with speed and commerce—the endless rush to market so someone can make money. But I’d prefer to invest in work that will outlive me, that has a chance to stand the test of time, and offer hope or inspiration or meaning to others for generations to come. That type of vision takes time and intention, so I’m offering those gifts to myself.

My overall word for 2025 was space. I think I worked hard at this, trying to make space for myself in my relationships, and in the wider world. I offered myself space to simply be human, instead of rushing around trying to check items off my to-do list. I also worked at giving space to others, especially my young-adult kids. My counsellor helped me see that if days go by and I don’t hear from them, it’s not punitive like it was in my family of origin. It’s just a bit of healthy space. If and when we miss one another or need one another, we’ll reach out. This bit of important insight has literally changed my life.

My 3 words for 2025 were deeper, simpler, quieter. I wanted to slow down and catch my breath. Looking back, I can see I did exactly that. I wrote the first half of my murder mystery novel, writing using intuition like with Post Civ instead of outlining and planning, and I’m thrilled with how that book is developing. I got derailed from finishing, when America tilted precariously into white Christian nationalist authoritarian rule and I decided to process my feelings on this by writing a journal as a historical record, but I will return to it in 2026 and eventually finish the book.

I loved having my monthly Ruby Finch Books Substack newsletter and podcast to reflect on each of the words I had chosen. At different points of the year, it’s helpful to have a unique focus to live into. I plan to continue my commitment to living a uniquely human life that prioritizes depth, simplicity, and quiet. These are valuable qualities.

The farther I move away from social media, and the aggressive disinformation campaigns forced on us through open AI, designed to fracture society and spread intentional propaganda, the more human I can become. And I fucking love being human in this misguided and inevitably doomed age of artificial intelligence. What an act of resistance it is to simply lean into my messy flesh and blood existence.

I’m sad that I didn’t finish my screenplay for Jamesy Harper’s Big Break this year, nor did I set up Ruby Finch Pictures as a production company. But there’s time. I’m giving myself space, and an extra measure of compassion, and moving these goals into the next year or even 2027. There’s no shortage of interesting work to do, and I keep reminding myself that a dream I’ve had since I was sixteen can wait another year or more. Living now, through these moments, matters too.

Farewell, 2025. You’ve been a hard one. Maybe 2026 will offer a little more light and hope for my fellow human beings, as we continue to share this one and only precious planet of ours. May love, nurture, and reason become fashionable again next year. Let’s work together to make it so.

In Identity, Nurture, Personal Growth, Relationships, Spiritual Life

Struggling

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

How are you doing this fall? I’m struggling.

I keep telling myself it will be better when I get some space to relax. When I have less to do and fewer deadlines to meet. But that never seems to happen. I finish one “must-complete” project and there’s ten more after it. The space to process my feelings doesn’t appear, so I remain sad and frustrated.

I’ve been working with a new counsellor for the last few weeks. It’s helping, in that I feel less alone and it’s lovely to hear new coping strategies from her, but it’s also not helping, because I feel like I’m only two steps in while attempting to climb Mount Everest.

In these challenging seasons, everything feels much harder than it should. I’m sick of only seeing shades of grey where I used to see vibrant colour. I’m bored of feeling sad and flat where once I felt hopeful and at peace.

I know this will pass. But that doesn’t really help on the shittiest days. It’s too far away to count. It’s an idea, not a reality. Asking for help in the form of counselling was difficult for me, because it meant admitting that I’m lost and don’t know where to go from here. I kept telling myself that I’ve had loads of therapy and I should know better. That’s when I knew I was in trouble.

This pandemic is dragging on forever. Not just for me, but for everybody. We all long for some kind of certainty and normalcy, if for no other reason than to just feel stable again. It’s exhausting looking into the future and only seeing a long series of question marks. Part of me knows there’s no real certainty, but in a pandemic this fact becomes crystal clear, with very little to hide or obscure it.

It’s so easy to tell someone else that the struggle is where the growth is found. No cost is associated with saying those words, but in the Mondays and Tuesdays of our lives it just plain hurts to feel you are in the dark. We set up our Christmas trees last week and when the lights come on in the late afternoon, I feel a tiny dart of joy, because for a few hours the darkness is pushed away.

The only way out is through. It’s one foot in front of the other, with additional grace and kindness to get me through these days. I’m tired. I miss my cat, Little Rose, who died in September. I feel adrift and sad. I think the key is to say it out loud; to let these emotions bloom in the dark instead of trying to pretend they aren’t there. Reaching out to other people helps. So does making space to journal, meditate, walk, breathe, create.

It’s a hard season, friends. What are you doing to look after yourself at the end of this pandemic year?

In Culture, Identity, Minimalism, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships, Spiritual Life

The Spaces Between

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

This holiday season, as we reflect on the year we leave behind and think about the one about to begin, my hope is that we find peace in the quiet of the spaces between.

So much of our culture revolves around hustle. Be busy, achieve success, look great, do a lot but make it seem effortless. For me, this is not a path to happiness. My heart longs for less. Smaller. Quieter. I’m interested in the spaces between the accomplishments, where the buzz recedes into the distance and you can hear the echo of peace.

This may sound easy, but I assure you it’s not. Living an intentionally quiet and small existence at the end of 2019 takes a lot of focus and effort. I have to endlessly remind myself that I’m good enough, just as I am, and I’m here to pass this message along to you.

The spaces between things is where the interesting stuff resides. It’s the pause after the heartbeat that makes the human body function. The rest in the music is why we can distinguish one note or lyric from another. The space is where we settle down so we can see what we actually have to be grateful for.

Right now, before the holiday season is upon us, seems like a beautiful time to find peace in the spaces between. Notice how much you love the people you spend your time with. Pet your cat or dog and appreciate their warmth on these long winter nights. May the Christmas lights remind us that not everything is dark after all.

The only permission we need to rest and be grateful comes from ourselves. We don’t need committee approval for how we choose to spend our time. These important decisions of renewal and gratitude come from inside of us. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

May we settle into the spaces between and wrap the silence around us like a blanket. Be here, in this moment, and know that this is what really matters. Let’s find peace in the quiet, to end one year and purposefully begin the next one.

In Nurture, Personal Growth, Relationships

20 Years

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on
20 Years

We are celebrating 20 years of marriage this summer. It reminds me of my parents divorcing around this milestone anniversary, and I also chuckle when I think about the neighbours we had when Jason and I were newly married. They were splitting up and the woman said wistfully, “We made it almost 20 years. That’s pretty good.”

No awards are given for simply lasting a long time in a marriage. What does the length of time even mean if both people are unhappy in the relationship? My parents did not leave me a very inspiring model to follow. When it came to my own marriage, I was determined to forge a new path toward a joint entity that satisfied both of us.

When I look back on the months preceding our wedding, I remember a cold sense of panic that I might be making a mistake. Jason seemed like a solid choice for a marriage partner, but so few marriages seem genuinely happy. I didn’t want to make a mess out of it and I was consistently worried that the alcoholic patterns from my childhood would carry over into my own marriage.

And of course they did. Every unconscious pattern we experience as children will inform our adult lives unless we confront it and change it. Thankfully, around the twelve-year mark, through intensive personal counselling followed by Al-Anon group counselling, these dysfunctional patterns were faced and we built new coping strategies in their place.

What a difference that painful season made to the quality of our relationship. We always had a low-grade marital satisfaction as our through-line, but this personal growth work I jumped into made everything look different because Jason responded enthusiastically to my changes. He didn’t demand that I stay the same. And since that time, when he has made significant personal changes, I have responded in the same encouraging manner, giving us both the freedom to grow into who we always wanted to be.

I’m so incredibly grateful to be married to this man. Without a doubt, choosing him as my husband has been the single best choice of my lifetime. Nothing about marriage is simple and straightforward. It’s full of peaks and valleys; happy times and sad ones; losses and gains so slow and steady they can’t be measured while they are being experienced. Only after can you look back and see just how much you’ve survived and changed.

The key to our strong relationship has been laughter. And loyalty to one another. Plus a liberal dose of courtesy when we speak to one another or about one another. We certainly don’t always feel gooey and mushy toward each other, but we endeavour to keep the respect and dignity front and centre. We also value the space between us and don’t let others into it, for it belongs to both of us and our unique marriage.

Happy Anniversary, my love. Here’s to the next two decades of growth and commitment.

Look at these kids!

 

In Culture, Identity, Minimalism, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships

Space

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on
Space

Lately I’ve had one word front and centre in my mind and experience: SPACE.

Space to be human. Space to breathe. Space to exist, to think, to discover, to play.

In our modern existence, where so much of life is done behind a screen (or one of my biggest pet peeves, which proves we are living in the forecasted future robot age: people walking in public spaces while staring vacantly at a tiny glowing machine in their hand), anything that brings us back to our own bodies and offers space from machines is becoming an urgent priority.

At the beginning of May, Jason and I went to Seattle to see Rob Bell on his Holy Shift tour. We met up with 4 friends who flew in from Calgary for the evening and a marvellous time was had by all. Both Rob Bell and his opening act (the hilarious Irish author Peter Rollins, who introduced himself by saying “I sell existential despair for money”) mentioned the word space during the tour. I love that feeling of kismet, when you are pondering a concept and others are recognizing its importance at the same time.

We have to work harder than ever to build space into our lives. For me, minimalism is a helpful container for the idea of space, because minimalism is about stripping away what doesn’t matter so we can isolate what we actually do prioritize. Space facilitates this process, for we need to intentionally dial down cultural noise in order to arrive at what we are really on this earth to be or do.

Pete Rollins spoke about how we have to define ourselves by who we aren’t before we can figure out who we are. This has stuck with me. Space comes into this because we are in desperate need of room to explore and discover what matters most to us in a world that is constantly invested in selling us what we don’t require.

I’m working on creating space in several areas of my life:

My Schedule

I’ve never been happier than now, when I’ve cut so much out of my calendar. Saying no to things I don’t want to do feels bloody fantastic and gives me leisure time to enjoy the activities I do want to do.

My Relationships

Carefully curating the people I allow into my inner circle has radically shifted my peace of mind. I want safe people around me. Encouraging ones. Friends who make me laugh. Those I can count on to tell the truth and be there when the chips are down.

My Inner Life

This one is critical. It involves refusing to stop scrolling through my phone whenever I have a spare moment. I’m determined to allow space here for my soul to expand, breathe, heal and grow. 

Our world is a dangerous, unsettled place and we need every available person to wake up and stop numbing with distractions. We need to tune back in, to ourselves first, and then to other actual human beings. To listen to one another. This is the way back home, to better priorities and more meaningful values.

For the last few months I’ve been trying a “name tag” experiment where I refer to anyone in a name tag by their name. I attempt to start a conversation, even if it’s awkward (especially if it’s awkward). The amount of people ordering coffees or buying groceries while staring mindlessly at their phones is alarming. Real flesh-and-blood people are serving us and we can’t even make eye contact? I’m done doing that. My phone stays in my purse.

Space is a valuable commodity. Let’s build it in. The process of waking up to our own lives is profound. Everything has been here, this whole time…trees, sun, flowers, birds singing, cats sleeping curled up like croissants, mothers walking down the street holding hands with toddlers, the barista carefully preparing your specialty coffee while she is being ignored, the people we love most going about their lives while we’ve been too busy to dial in and notice.

Make the space. You won’t get chances forever. The good stuff is right here, right now. It’s time to wake up and pay attention.