I’m fucking angry.

Saying no to a half-lived life in exchange for full one is uncomfortable as fuck, and I am struggling.

Shit I’m tight grill when my situation ain’t improving/ I’m tryna murder everything moving, feel me? — Jay-Z “Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)”

I haven’t been this uncomfortable in a long time. My situation right now looks dismal as fuck to the casual observer. Hell to me too (I’d elaborate but I believe in the law of written Karma so I won’t).

But my situation ain’t why I’m mad. It’s readily rectifiable if need be. The problem is I’m at that critical mass point where you gotta start saying no to everything that doesn’t align with your dream, even if it means foregoing comfort for a moment to bring this thing to life.

It reminds me of another kind of discomfort I bore three times in a row: the last trimester of pregnancy.

If you ever wonder why women in their 7th thru 9th month of pregnancy are hell on two legs, I’ll explain.

There is a tiny parasite siphoning off a great deal of your nutrients, pushing your organs and limbs out the way, all in preparation for the moment you can squeeze it itty bitty head out of a relatively small but flexible part of your body.

This little entity is also quite alive and moving around; it has wants and needs and hands and feet that stick in your ribs, pelvis and other innapporiate places that are downright painful.

And your body, no longer comfortable with the expanse of your stomach and hips and the pressure on you back, begins to betray you in all sorts of interesting ways. From hives, to heartburn, to sleepless nights, nausea, you name it.

But all the hell becomes worth it the moment that little ball of noise and grunts is safely nuzzled aginst your boob while you pray for your uterus to quit contracting long enough for you to go to sleep between being prodded every two hours by well-meaning hospital staff.

That’s how I feel right now. Like I’m in the third trimester of my dream creatively. Saying no to alot has narrowed down my field in a way my freedom loving self is not used to. I’m ready to fight, I’m ready to yell, I’m ready to scream and kick; all I want to do is snap because I just want the discomfort to be over already.

But it’s part of the process.

And I can say that because I spent 10 years (in about four hours) with Hayao Miyazaki, the brilliant mastermind behind Studio Ghibli classics like My Neighbor Totoro and The Wind Rises.

In watching the four-hour documentary, I got to see how he agonized and struggled with every frame of the storyboards for his animation to breathe life into these two dimensional entities. I saw how he mumbled things like “this is a hassle”, “this is a pain”; how he smoked like a chimne, and was genuinely irritable with his staff while he tried to figure out key details in the story. So much so, he has a habit of taking about a week off prior to production to be away from everyone and everything all so he could be left alone to suffer and be grumpy in peace.

Let him tell it, it’s because his default state is a grumpy old man and most days he’s able to plaster something over that. But as he draws nearer to the mental space of pure discomfort he requires to produce the high level works he churns out, he feels less and less like wearing that happy person mask. He wants to let the grumpy out.

And that’s the point I’m at. I just want to let the grumpy out because this shit is fucking difficult. Saying no to what you kinda want so you can say yes to what you’d give your right arm for is, and i mean this with the utmost disdain, for the biiiiiirds.

Add to this additional discomfort from doing shadow work on myself so I can continue growing, and developing disciplined eating and self-care habits…all with no weed to lull the discomfort (I’d smoke cigarettes but lung cancer is a thing in my family, and I’d rather not invite it into my bed).

I’m fucking angry. I’m fucking exhausted and I want a box of fucking donuts.

But as uncomfortable as I am, this still beats the half-lived stupor I was in before.

So I’mma knock back some kangen water (cause I’m bougie bitches) and continue to wrestle with my discomfort till it yields the life I fucking want.

Y’all pray for me.