i haven’t kept up with this like i had originally planned. the last time i checked in was at year 5. for wood, i didn’t have any big revelations, and was just drifting along trying my best to survive.

but surviving isn’t the same as living. eventually the people around you notice and they either challenge you to grow or leave you behind.

i have no idea what i would have written for 6 (candy), 7 (wool), or 8 (pottery). even now, i’m not entirely sure where this will go. when i think of willow, i think of the tree from disney’s pocahontas, grandmother willow, or harry potter’s whomping willow. problematic, i know, but i don’t know that i’ve seen many willow trees in real life to use as a point of reference. so my idea of a willow tree is this massive tree that can bend and absorb the things that are thrown at it without breaking.

things are different from year 5, i’m no longer just surviving, i do believe that i am growing. it’s slow growth, probably stunted by my own unconscious telling me that this is what i deserve, and that this was never the plan. but growth is still growth, i have to try and remember not to be too hard on myself. i was never really one for planning in the first place, other than my 7 year deal that i made with myself, but that expired without my life collapsing like i thought it would. you see, the plan after valley was to give it 7 years. if things weren’t better by then, i could say that i gave it a fair shot, and wouldn’t hold it against myself for giving up. year 7, i surpassed the age that my father was when i was born. that turned out to be a surprising trigger that sent me into a weird identity spiral, but i came out mostly unscathed.

i don’t know where this growth will lead, and most days i still feel like i don’t have an overall existential purpose, but at least i’m not stagnant. and i have some goals, at least for the short term.

i guess it’s cheesy, to say “i bend, but i won’t break” because i know that i have broken before, but i have also grown since then. like trees growing around things or scars forming on skin, i keep a memory of what happened, but it doesn’t keep me from living.