"We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations." - Anaïs Nin

The tendonopathy I’m enduring mirrors my mindset at the moment — because I can’t physically move, I feel like I’m not moving in any direction. It's frustrating.

For me, to move is to grow. My father used to say, "you gotta keep moving." I took that to heart. Now, he’s frozen — forever static in photos, in memory. Recently, my mum burst into tears when her phone, unbidden, stitched together photos of him into a video, showing him moving toward her, animated, smiling cheekily at her. He’s both frozen in time and not — endlessly in the same motion. And I see that the selves we had in relation to him are disintegrating, bit by bit, as every day slips farther from his last breath. We’re becoming someone new, whether we want to or not. Somehow, we have to grow into this suit of grief and newness.

As Nin suggests, growth isn’t straightforward or uniform. I can’t expect to keep moving toward some hallowed endpoint, despite my desperation to feel progress in any direction. Nin is right that we grow in dimensions — emotionally one way, intellectually another. Some parts of us are stunted, others surging forward. My child self cries out for my father, believes it’s not fair. My child self is furious that my body doesn’t let me surf, hike, or simply stay in motion. My adult self, though, knows this is a time of becoming, even if it’s painfully slow. I am a caterpillar in its cocoon, mycellium threading through dark soil. Even as I feel stuck, I know parts of me are quietly cracking through, stretching toward light. The self is uneven, layered, contradictory: full of 'layers, cells, constellations.'

In this fragmented, irregular growth, ennui lurks. I feel the past tugging — a self who was physically strong, mentally sharp, the one who once planned to drive from London to Melbourne, who chose a career I later wished I hadn’t - how would life look if I'd become a geneticist or a naturopath? And I feel my future looming darkly, where I too am dying, decaying, knowing I may leave no mark on the world whilst at the same time holding in my palm the fact it does not matter. It’s the awareness of my own potential and the dissatisfaction of what remains unfulfilled — and might never be.

Maybe this is what life is: a constant searching for more, always rubbing against the feeling of incompleteness.

It’s partly why I haven’t felt much desire to write here on Hive — my daily posts have dwindled to the occasional rant or recipe. Nothing seems to matter enough. If I could be bothered, I’d delete every post I’ve ever written and leave a virtual “gone fishing” sign. But there are versions of me on the blockchain I still kind of like, right alongside the words that make me cringe as I wonder: who were you, then?

Everything feels fragmented now — not enough to write anything long or cohesive, only isolated snapshots. The bread I baked, the seeds I planted, the garden I tend, the ocean I dive into, conversations with Mum, the tears that come when I think about Dad, the worries about never seeing Europe again because I can’t sit that long, the excitement over Bitcoin rising, the disappointment that HIVE hasn’t, the pop-top camper Jamie’s been building slowly with grease-covered hands, the irises I trimmed back, the chicken that leapt the fence only to disappear with Miss Foxy, the fire warming up the outdoor bath, the birds swooping on the raspberries and the netting we tugged round the canes, the headache I’ve had for three days, the Tassie trip coming up, and what does any of it even mean? Who cares?

Maybe the mmeaning itself I'm trying to make isn't a cohesive thing. Maybe by nature it's fragmented and scattered - these little snapshots don’t have to make sense together or add up in anyway. They are seeds planted in half-wild soil. They don't fit in tidy rows - they aren't meant to be understood in such a way. Some grow, some die, some fade - some are just there, rooted in memory, in time. Maybe that’s enough. Just pieces of living. Things I loved or tried to love.

With Love,

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