There’s nothing like a pandemic to get you thinking about your life. With all the extra COVID and financial stress (not to even mention protests and election drama this year), y’all know I’ve been struggling. Back around Mabon I said I was hopeful about fall, the season of water, being a time of healing and transformation. Then we got near Samhain and I felt it was time to sort through some feelings about my dad, and I didn’t do any exciting ceremonies or anything, I’ve definitely made progress on that. In fact, after Samhain I signed up for online therapy to do some sorting and healing.

I signed up through Better Help, where they ask you what your issues and preferences are and match you with a therapist who seems to match your needs. So far I’m not impressed with the therapist I got matched with, but venting some feelings and writing things out has made a few things clear. So that’s good. One of the main things I’ve realized is that maybe I don’t even need therapy. Almost everything she’s saying are things I’ve already figured out about myself and worked on a lot. Maybe what I actually need to do is move. Like actually move to another state. New Mexico, probably.

The Robot and I have talked on and off for years about moving somewhere else. We’ve talked about New Mexico more than once as having a lot of the same beautiful nature and small town charm we like about Utah, but with the added bonus of cool Mexican and Native American influences and a strong art and artisan culture we really like. Plus, less air pollution and weird Mormon-driven conservative politics. We’ve never gotten serious for the usual reasons–jobs here, worries about moving the kids, the sheer hassle of moving–but we think it’s time to take the plunge. There’s still a lot to look at, but we’re hoping to move over the summer.

I feel so good about this. I’m not the kind of pagan who thinks the gods are arranging my life, and I certainly don’t think the universe would spread a deadly virus just so I’d get off my ass and move somewhere nicer. I actually believe the world is a bit random and doesn’t care about any one of us personally, which makes it my job to create meaning and purpose for myself. So I don’t feel like all this had a reason, or this is the lesson 2020 was teaching me, but I have felt like my spirit and mind have been struggling toward something during all this. 2020 has shaken my sense of self and place, and that might be a good thing. For a while now, I’ve been shuffling and reshuffling all those broken pieces, trying to fit them together with this new reality, and I feel like I’m finally finding a shape that works.

Like I just said, I’m not a pagan who thinks the gods are arranging my life, but I can’t help but notice how this idea became clear right after the “witches New Year.” Winter to dream and germinate the seeds of this new vision, spring to begin the planning, summer to do the work of moving and settling, next fall to reap the harvest. Maybe it won’t pan out that way at all, but it feels fitting.

I don’t have any pictures of New Mexico or of useless therapists or anything, but I do have pictures of our festive Samhain dinner complete with dry ice “potion,” and pictures of the first snow of the year yesterday.