The gift of summer is one that feels as if it is slipping through fingers. Melting like a popsicle and we are trying to lick every sweet, sticky taste before the light runs out and the colors dim. We just whizzed past the half-way point of the year, can you believe it??

I recently filed for bankruptcy. I won’t go into the complicated legal details and I’m not writing this looking for pity or to trigger anyone’s savior complex. This is just what is going on in my life. Every time I sat down to write about something else, it seemed fake. Owning it as an important part of my story is something I’m working towards no matter how scared or how much resistance I’m feeling. So, I’ll ask you to hold this space with me as I am trying to do for myself.

When it comes to arts focused businesses within a capitalistic society, there is big risk involved. Really any small business is so tough. Big risk can end in big failure no matter how much heart and pure intention are behind something. People, myself included, search and talk of silver linings. At a certain point the silver linings feel used up and devolve into toxic positivity, bypassing what’s true for an easier feeling. Even the concept of “both / and” is usually something I can get behind. And I love a good compost metaphor! Death becomes life! But right now, I am holding my nervous system gently and my possessions loosely as I face the residual shame of failure and loss on full display through this process.

It isn’t just that there’s nothing left but a stack of old posters, it’s that there is a deficit hanging over my life. And even when my case is discharged and I begin the process of starting over, that deficit will be a part of me. It’s not just that I can’t pay off the mounds of debt left in the wake of a failed business, it’s how long and hard I tried to avoid this exact moment. It’s not because I can’t replace loss with beauty, re-establish financial security, or fill my life with good. It’s not because I don’t know my skills and value and that truly I can make a new life I love. It’s because it hurts pouring 10+ years of your heart, mind and body into something and being left with…nothing. Or even more than just a sense of nothing, it’s a nothing so big that it stretches like an endless runway and the plane can’t seem to take off. Picture just sitting in a plane mid-taxi, knowing you have somewhere beautiful to go. Knowing you can’t leave.

The good memories have ceased to outweigh the bad when the void continues to pull at what I have been attempting to maintain as peace in my life. Ouch. It’s a pithy little term, but I recently heard “feeling is healing” and I’m realizing that my approach to processing the last decade and a half of my life can’t just be about holding on to the good stuff (my natural inclination). I must seek out the fine line between wallowing and fully holding space for how much it sucks.

In this liminal space, waiting on the runway to take off, to rebuild something new…I am finding peace by reveling in the smallest things. It took me until 38 to realize I am a cat AND a dog person! What a discovery. I am finding a renewed confidence and passion as a musician and songwriter. For all the years spent giving to the music community I struggled to know my place, and I second guessed my own voice. A beautiful coming home to something I have loved my whole life.

In a period of time where there is nothing concrete about my life monetarily, I am finding the deepest well of value in things that have no commodification. As a person addicted to productivity, this is not what I would have planned for myself now or ever. I have no savings and no control of what happens next.

I am turning to what I do have that is fully exempt from bankruptcy court…my hands, my heart, my perspective. And I have the safety and security I create in my own body, mind and relationships. If you made it this far…thank YOU for being a part of that safety and allowing me to share.

Sincerely,
Karli

Anna Tivel put out a new album last month that I’m dying over. It’s so gorgeous and moving. If you are less of a playlist person and more of an album person, I recommend going straight to it! She’ll be playing Spokane on July 30th, I’ll be there. 🙂 Anyways, enjoy this month’s slightly melancholy laid back playlist.

Not much going on this month for me other than Alcohol & Feelings on July 29th! We have some fun special guests planned, so throw on some western duds, grab a friend and we we will see you there. Maxwell House, 7:30-9:30, free and all ages until 9pm.