My twilight zone 🌌
Welcome to MY TWILIGHT ZONE 🌌 🌟 well, to be honest, I just arrived, so I'm excited to explore this area with you.
Before diving into what I'm talking about - I had to Google what "the twilight zone" actually is and what it refers to. It's always been one of those expressions in the English language that seemed so ambiguous and vague, that in theory... I knew what the expression meant but I've never used it in a conversation for fear that I'm using it wrong 😅
So according to my Googling skills, there are a few things that I've found about the "twilight zone" that I'd love to share first!
WHAT DOES THE TWILIGHT ZONE MEAN?
According to yourdictionary.com, they've listed out various meanings that I really like -
"A situation or state of mind seemingly between reality and fantasy."
"A vague or uncertain area or state."
"An area of ambiguity between two distinct states or conditions."
FUN FACTS ABOUT THE TWILIGHT ZONE
There's a television sci-fi series called "The Twilight Zone" from 1959, that mixes horror, sci-fi, drama, comedy, and superstition. I've never seen this series or heard of it, but after Googling some more - I think this series would actually scare me.
And "the twilight zone" is actually a scientific term that is used to describe the lowest level of the ocean that light can reach, and then as an aeronautical term used by the U.S. Airforce.
Grieving the idea of HERE & BELONGING
At the end of April and beginning of May, I was in the United States visiting my family and attending a business retreat with my business mentor and mastermind group. This trip was certainly different than my holiday trip, where it was the first time I visited "home" after 2 years of a pandemic and stayed in my parents' house for 1.5 months (that's a long time...).
Instead of all the VERY heavy feelings I experienced in December 2021/January 2022 visiting the USA - this trip was so different. I traveled alone, and was there for a short period of time; it was a different season of the year, and I've been making conscious efforts to communicate, empathize, and understand my family. Basically, therapy is really helping me!
The last time I was in the USA for a month and a half, I had a HUGE moment of realization that I can't call the USA, specifically Virginia, home anymore. My parent's home isn't "home" anymore.
The lifestyle, culture, routines, and habits of my family are so different from mine now.
When I returned back to Spain after the holidays in January 2022, I realized I am just a "visitor" and that my "home" is actually right here in Spain. Y'all - talk about a serious mindfuck moment that I'm still working through with my therapist!
So this last trip, I didn't approach it as "going home", it was simply visiting. I didn't think about it as "this is where I belong", it was more that this was once who I was and was once my life.
And during that week, I did all the things I used to do when I was "home" and living with my parents. I did the chores with them, helped them with laundry, helped my parents figure out tech issues, run errands for them, and lots of other things that took me back to "who I was" while I lived there.
This is where the grief comes in, y'all.
For my morning routine, I usually pull an oracle card from one of my favorite decks and journal on it. The card that came up was "Grief" - so here's where I realized I am in mourning and I hold grief.
I'm mourning:
My identities
The stories I told myself
My OWN story
Who I was and the previous chapter of my life
And I realized, the grief I hold is...
The unspoken grief of my family
My ancestors
All the people in my lineage before me
Maybe because some of my ancestors, current, and past, never got the opportunity to mourn and pass through grief - they've unintentionally passed it along to me. So I hold it in my body and my soul.
And that's when I also realized that I am feeling grief around "home and belonging" because these ideas feel so distant to me - bouncing from one place to another but never quite fitting in - and I am mourning the idea that home isn't home, anymore. Home is here and now, where I am in the moment, and to feel like I belong, I need to focus on that.
My twilight zone
So, where does "the twilight zone" come in?
WELL - if we take the definitions that I shared above from yourdictionary.com... The Twilight Zone is a vague or uncertain area, it's ambiguous, and can't be defined - it just is and that's what makes it magical and beautiful.
While I'm grieving that I don't "belong" at "home" anymore (or what was once my definition of home), I now float in-between, in that gray space.
I find and create my home wherever I can build and create whatever I want - a world where I can live out my values, live out my creativity, and explore. A world where I don't necessarily even NEED to "belong" or "find home" because it would just already be.
And this is where the ✨ spark ✨ for the twilight zone came!
In reality (which is only perceived), I live in the twilight zone.
My existence is its own sort of twilight zone, and this is where the magic happens because it is undefined, vast, and abundant.
This ✨ twilight zone ✨ concept can be applied to everything I've been exploring over the past years:
My identities (which can fluctuate, change, and adapt)
My culture
My home
My values
My creativity
My goals
Etc.
In this "dark in-between" that can't be defined, is where my creativity, joy, pleasure, activism, fun, work, and spirit can thrive.
If the twilight zone is the ether between reality and fantasy, I can exist juuuust in the middle, dancing between both to bring ideas, dreams, and creative concepts to life.
And THAT is my epiphany about work, life, identity, culture, etc.
Living in the twilight zone
I still need to work through all these concepts and define them a littel more - but what if we took the idea of "living in our own twilight zones" and explored what that would mean to us?
For me, living in my twilight zone means:
Not being defined by one thing
Not having one or multiple things hold me back
The possibilities because I create between reality and fantasy
The magic that exists there because I'm not being held back by overthinking and people-pleasing tendencies
Creating freely
Coming home to myself and not expecting or wishing for it from someone or somewhere else
My twilight zone is the area of opportunity for everything in my life because it keeps me curious, eager to learn, hungry for connection, and filled with joy and pleasure because I sway from reality to fantasy and vice versa. Honestly, this is some serious Pisces soul talking to y'all right now! ♓️
I suppose I'll leave you with a few journaling prompts to explore on this theme/idea and if you feel comfortable, hit reply and let me know what came up for you:
GRIEF: Where do you hold grief in your body? Where do you hold grief in your soul? Who's grief is it (yours or your ancestors)?
TWILIGHT ZONE: If your entire existence was in the twilight zone, what possibilities could you dream and bring to life? How would your communities look?
Anyway - this newsletter was a bit longer so I appreciate if you've read through the whole thing!
I'm looking forward to exploring my own twilight zone and all the creative magic that can come from being in this space.
But until then...
#stayfierce 🐙 fam
Cassandra