I did half of an MRI before I discovered they freak me out…which I learned when I freaked out, LOL. I wouldn't even let them try to give me a Valium so I could try again. I was done. If they want to MRI me further, I'll seek out a facility with one of the open MRI machines.

They also did a CT scan, which was normal. From the half MRI, they discovered I have a partially empty sella — which is either an anatomical abnormality I was born with, or a sign of increased pressure in my braaaaainnnn. I've been referred back to neurology for further evaluation.

In the meantime, I saw my chiropractor, who did a few different inner ear recalibration techniques. I've seen minimal improvement — as in, I'm not stumbling when I walk anymore, which is wonderful, but most of the other things are still persisting. I'm not able to be upright for very long yet. I am hopeful this will improve.

I'm a bit over having unexplainable medical phenomenons, if I'm being so for real with you guys right now. It annoys me and it freaks me the fuck out.

Anyway, since I've been laying in bed a lot, I've been thinking my way through the issue (with a little help from many spiritually-inclined friends). I know the trigger point here is stress. We're moving in less than a month, money is incredibly tight, my spouse broke her arm and can't do too much around the house, etc etc etc etc. Not to mention the also-existing external pressures of the fuckery of the world - diarrhea parasites, salmonella, wildfires, record-breaking heat waves, grocery prices in the goddamn sky, escalating violence toward queer folk and people of color…the list is unending. I’m under a lot of pressure, and apparently that has decided to take up residency in my head.

Something else I've noted lately — when I achieve a goal or I do well, I don't linger on that. I move right to the next thing or next level and keep pushing. A part of me believes that's how you get anywhere in life, and that's what go-getters do. (puke. I don't like that conditioning.)

A smaller, softer but insistent part of me has been trying to get me to take even a moment to celebrate my own achievements and how hard I work. To give myself a little credit.

I don’t relate so much to the first part. When I fail, I don’t berate myself and I don’t decide that I am a failure. But I do start to spiral, because I’ve created a life where truly so much rides on my ability to perform and to succeed. This was a grand error, and I encourage you to set your life up differently.

I literally don’t know how to undo it at this point. When I don’t perform (which most of the time does look like over-performing), something substantial goes wrong. Like, we can’t buy groceries.

I also feel like I simply expect myself to succeed, so when I do, it's like, "Cool, data as expected. Next." It feels like a very cold, scientific thing almost. I think I must hold myself away from joy more than I realize — which is important for me to say, because I've been expanding my capacity to do so for years at this point. I've definitely made some progress, but this pattern is still showing up for me in sneaky ways. Same problem wearing different clothes, so it appears to be a new challenge at first.

Anyway, I've reached a point where I've just had enough. That's it! This is the turning point, and this is where I start to feel better. Whatever that takes — I'll try anything and everything. While my issues are chronic and long-standing, I have to believe they aren't permanent and that they can be remediated. If it turns out I'm wrong, then hopefully this journey of healing myself will also help me find peace with the things I cannot change.

So, that’s it then. We’re going this. Because I’m sick of only having bad news. Currently, I’m adopting the “throw spaghetti at the wall” approach in an effort to have relief from my symptoms. I had distance reiki done (which enabled me to get out of bed for a few hours), and a friend helped me interpret the emotional connections to the spots my chiropractor always needs to adjust. C1 is the heaviest hitter according to my chiro, and that represents safety, survival, and hyper vigilance. Imagine my surprise. C2 is next in line and somewhat overlaps with themes of safety, survival, and emotional responsibility. Last but not least is C7 with themes of truth, power, and direction. (This is all from NRT, neuromuscular release therapy.) I’ve also picked up a vibration plate to help with lymphatic drainage, a walking pad to balance how much sitting I’m doing at work, and re-started my GLP-1*. Oh, and I bought a steel mace to weight train with, inspired by Natalie Brooke Guevara — apparently it’s great for those of us that are hypermobile. I’ve added in daily electrolytes and will be adding in 2-AEP magnesium. I’m done, I’m done, I’m done. I intend to focus in so hard that I went ahead and created a separate Instagram account for it, which you can follow if you want to know just….so much about my health journey, lol. It’s cat.feels.better.

I don't know yet which of these things will help, or if it's all of them, or none of them. But somewhere between the CT scan and the steel mace, I'm trying something I don't usually let myself do: have a near-delusional level of hope that things are going to get better for me. And I’ll bring you along for the ride, if you want to come along.

love you!

cat fitz.

p.s. - if you’re local and you want to help this audhd messy ass household move in mid-August, hey, I wouldn’t say no. LOL.

*I have experimented with tirzepatide (see also: Zepbound) pretty much every way one can. I’ve microdosed and I went up as far as the 12mg auto-injector at one point. I’ve used research peptides. I’ve gotten it prescribed to me. I’ve used compounded versions. At this point, I’m pretty confident I know what works best for me - between 5mg and 7.5mg. I felt so goddamn good at those doses. Any higher than that? Started to experience some of the undesirable side effects that are possible with this medication, such as some pretty heavy-hitting nausea. Any lower than that? Not much happening for me.

I think these drugs get a lot of hate online, and often, anyone promoting them gets coined as an anti-fat, pro-skinny person. Well, I’m not. And while I have lost weight taking this drug, the more impactful things have been a reduction in my joint pain, erasing the majority of my brain fog, and a major decrease in inflammation. I cannot recommend it enough. For context, just in case you’re new here, I have MCAS, EDS, lipedema (previously incorrectly diagnosed as fibromyalgia), and lord knows what else LOL. I am also neurodivergent - an audhd girlie. So - take that as you will. If you are interested in starting a GLP-1, I get mine through Fridays and I do have a discount - you can click this link or just ask me about it. (lol #ad, but seriously no pressure in any way.) I’m an open book, and this medication made a night and day difference in my life.

The math felt airtight: the less I asked for, the less space I took up, the better I was doing. I wore my low-maintenance-ness like a badge. Look how easy I am. Look how much I can hold. Look how little I require.

What I didn’t understand - what I couldn’t understand for a long time - is that I wasn’t low-needs. (Ha! A low-needs human being? What’s that? It doesn’t exist.) I was a kid who had learned that invisibility was the key to survival.

I spent most of my childhood trying to be as perfect as possible so that I could go unseen. And in being unseen, I could stay safe. My abuser couldn’t reach what they couldn’t find. So I got very, very good at disappearing.

The path from that little girl to my adult relationship patterns is a straight ass line.

Here’s the thing about a kid who learns to make herself invisible: she also grows up desperately lonely. And loneliness that size will do anything to be chosen. I would contort myself, override myself, perform myself into exhaustion - all in service of not being left by the people I’d decided I wanted.

Those two things lived inside me simultaneously for decades: shrink to stay safe and be only your best if you want to be kept. They are not compatible with a full life. They are also both completely logical responses to the environment that made me.

Performing, in practice, looks like over-giving. Over-working. Doing more, holding more, being more, with no regard really for what I actually had within me to give, but instead having a laser focus on trying to make myself indispensable. If I was useful enough, needed enough, easy enough and giving enough, maybe you’d stay. Maybe no one would leave me all alone.

You can’t resent someone for not giving you what you never asked for - except that you absolutely can, and I absolutely did, and I didn’t even know I was doing it.

For a long time, I didn’t even know I was performing. I want to be clear about that, because it would be easy to read this as a story about a person who was lying to herself and everyone around her. That’s not quite right.

I’d worn the mask so long I genuinely thought it was my face.

The needs, the loneliness, and the love were all real. What wasn’t real was my belief that I didn’t have a larger self underneath all the accommodating - a self with her own desires and limits and a body that was keeping score whether I acknowledged it or not.

and my god, did my body ever keep that goddamn score.

Chronic illness. A backlog of resentments I didn’t realize I was building, until I was suddenly holding years of them. And an unbridled rage, cracking the very seams of my being in an effort to claw its way out. Ready to scream with the primal backlog energy of it all. The bill came due, as bills do.

I was lucky, in that I’d had enough painful relationships by the time I found Cori to recognize: this person is genuinely safe. I chose well. I’m proud of that.

And still - even married, even held, even chosen - I didn’t let myself fully exhale into having needs until embarrassingly recently. Like, the last few years. Which is almost funny, until it isn’t.

My therapist, though. She knew. (Of course she did, she’s a Projector in Human Design, after all. She is also an absolute G, I love that woman.)

I remember telling her we were getting married - I had braced for her to pump the brakes. To be logical with me. To ask if I was sure. Instead she celebrated. She was delighted. And I remember being so confused by that response. But she understood something I hadn’t yet: that I needed the security of that commitment before I could finally start to relax into being a person.

A person with needs. A person who gets to take up space.

I’m telling you all of this because I don’t think I’m alone in this particular flavor of wound.

The “I’m so low-maintenance” (otherwise seen as “I’m fine”) identity runs deep in so many of us - especially those of us who learned early that our needs were inconvenient, dangerous, or unwelcome. We absorbed the message that less-needy and easy equals more lovable, and we built entire personalities around proving how well we could fit into that box.

And here’s what I want to offer as a mirror, if you’re willing to look:

Low-needs is not who you are - it’s who you had to be. One that maybe kept you safe once. One that you are allowed to outgrow.

What would it mean to let yourself need things - out loud, without apology, from the people who chose you? What about from yourself?

I’m still learning. But I am learning. Better late than never. Maybe if I keep going long enough here, I’ll be able to reconnect with my own desire and see what I actually want out of this life.

love you!

cat fitz

If this landed somewhere tender for you, I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

(Here’s the crash out soundtrack if you want it:)

Here is what the inside of my life sounds like right now: static. Or that high-pitched frequency you hear right before you pass out - except it’s not a warning of something coming. It’s just the baseline. The permanent ambient noise of being alive in this particular moment, in this particular body, in this particular country.

I have been struggling with suicidal ideation. I want to name that directly because I think we lose something important when we soften it into “dark thoughts” or “going to a bad place.” I’m not going to harm myself - that’s genuinely not something I’m inclined toward, and I’m grateful for that. But the feeling inside me reaches that degree. And I think a lot of us are living there, in that frequency, and not saying it out loud because it sounds too heavy, too much, too something.

So I’m saying it. Because the not-saying is part of what’s making us so tired.

I am a mother of three. I have a full-time job that pays, objectively, pretty well. I cannot afford my groceries. I am selling my possessions to make rent.

I am also trying to parent in a way that heals my entire lineage - no pressure - while keeping my kids shielded from the specific weight of right now, because they deserve to just be kids for as long as that’s possible. They will have their time to worry. It is my job to hold the worry for them as long as I can.

So I perform. Every day I manufacture some version of Happy Mom Mode™, and I do it from inside a body that is ill - metaphorically and literally, because a life of unrelenting stress has a way of making itself known in the flesh. I get little reprieve. The reprieve that exists costs money I don’t have. Insurance doesn’t cover the things that would actually help. You know how it goes. You probably know exactly how it goes.

I keep my kids in music lessons I can’t afford because the joy on their faces is the kind of thing I would sell more possessions to protect. That is the math I’m doing every single day. What can I let go of to preserve the thing that matters? What matters enough to fight for?

The answer is always: more than I have capacity to fight for. And so I fight anyway.

There is no one left to ask for help. Everyone around me is in the same place. The rent is too high. The bills are too high. The income - even the good income - is not enough. This is not a personal failing. I need to keep saying that to myself because the noise tries to make it into one.

I sleep with affirmations playing because I am trying to literally reprogram the logical negativity out of me. You understand why I said logical, right? Because the negativity is not irrational. It is a completely reasonable response to circumstances that are genuinely bad. I’m trying to convince my nervous system to hold on anyway. I’m trying to talk myself into tomorrow.

And I do. Every day, I do.

I cry. I gasp. I beat upon my chest. I pray, in whatever loose and desperate way I know how to pray. I breathe. And then I do it again.

Someone asked recently why Americans aren’t revolting.

I think about that a lot. And I think the answer is that they have managed - someone has managed - to get us all to a state of such profound exhaustion that the revolutionary act is just waking up. Getting the kids to school. Making it to work. Keeping the music lessons.

Bone-tired is the new sedated, I guess.

And I’m not trying to be defeatist. Anyone who knows me for real knows that is not what lives at my core. What lives at my core is the knowing that this particular kind of suffering - this generational, systemic suffering - is the labor before something new. The birthing pains of a way of life that hasn’t arrived yet. I genuinely believe that.

But I also believe that grief demands to be felt all the way through. You can’t skip it and get to the other side. And I think a lot of us are trying to skip it because feeling it all the way through looks, from the outside, like falling apart.

I’m not falling apart. I’m grieving. There’s a difference, even when they look identical.

As a kid, I did not imagine this.

I did not imagine that adulthood would be this hard, this relentless, this devoid of the ease I was told was coming if I just worked hard enough. None of us imagined this. And it’s not just our generation - it’s not a competition - but millennials have gone through it and gone through it and gone through it, and at some point you’re allowed to say: this is not what I hoped for.

This is not what I hoped for.

And I’m still here.

Working.

Longing for the version of me that had so much light - the one I know is still somewhere inside, being crushed under the weight of trying to survive. She’s in there. I talk to her. I tell her to hold on.

I keep the music lessons.

I write this down.

I breathe, and I do it again.

If this found you in your own static: I see you. We haven’t lost yet. We’re just trying to be alive right now, and that is, genuinely, a lot to ask of a person.

We’re doing it anyway.

I met with a GP there first, who listened to me for a full 90 minutes and took an entire pageful of notes. From there, I was referred to no less than 9 different specialists.

Most recently, I saw 3 different specialists:

• Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (for lipedema)

• Department of Otorhinolaryngology (for my voice)

• Department of Neurology (for autonomic nervous system testing)

First up, the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation

I’ve finally been diagnosed with lipedema. I’ve known about this for a while, but it was validating to be given the diagnoses. And, like, speedily as well. I walked into the room and the doctor said, “Oh, I don’t even have to touch you. I can see it.” She did feel it to assess the scale and severity, of course, but the fact that she could diagnose it on sight was cathartic for me in a way. I fuckin’ told you so, every other doctor I ever asked about this.

In case you don’t know what lipedema is, it’s a chronic condition characterized by bilateral, symmetric buildup of adipose tissue (fat) in the legs, and sometimes the arms and lower trunk. Here are some of the common symptoms, per the Lipedema Foundation:

• Bilateral, symmetrical buildup of fat in the legs, and sometimes arms and lower trunk, that is resistant to nutritional intervention, exercise, elevation, diuretics, and bariatric surgery

• Feet/hands are typically spared, sometimes causing the appearance of an ankle or wrist “cuff”

• Almost exclusively affects women

• Complaints of pain, tenderness, heaviness in affected areas

• Fatigue Starts or worsens at times of hormonal changes: puberty, pregnancy, or menopause

• Easy bruising

• Presence of nodular and/or fibrotic texture beneath the skin that can create an uneven, dimpled appearance

• Edema and joint hypermobility may also be present

Lipedema is often hereditary. It is quite painful in my experience, and I believe my earlier diagnosis of fibromyalgia was actually lipedema. When I started gaining weight out of nowhere in my 20s with no changes to diet or routine, I brought it up to my doctor at the time. I also pointed out the fat on my arm, which felt like tiny, hard marbles to the touch. I was told this was “just how fat looks and feels” and that they were unconcerned with my rapid weight gain. And now, of course, here we are. Some patients with lipedema have found some success in weight loss with the help of a GLP-1 - in fact, it is the only thing right now that can potentially work outside of surgery. I was on it for almost a year and dropped 70 pounds, which is certainly notable. You know what else happened? My brain fog decreased significantly, and I was in a lot less pain while I was taking it.

We know very little about why lipedema happens (though my theory is trauma. Many things lead back to that.), and so we have very few treatments. Due to the level of pain I am in on a constant basis and the widespread nature of the lipedema on my body (it’s everywhere except for my hands and feet), I have been referred to the Plastics team to potentially have the lipedema removed via liposuction. I am not so concerned about the aesthetics of my body - I find myself to be beautiful as I am. I am concerned about the pain, fatigue, and heaviness that I have been fighting to live through here. It is my hope that this surgery (assuming I can convince my insurance to cover it) can give me a bit of a new lease on life and allow me to be able to be a more physcially active and playful parent.

(side note: it is so difficult to talk about weight-related things without people feeling like you’re saying everyone needs to lose weight, or that I need to lose weight, or that I’m fatphobic or whatever. I don’t feel that way. All bodies are beautiful. My concern is and will always be: how does one feel in their body?)

Next: the Department of Otorhinolaryngology

This appointment was cool as fuck. I checked in and met with one gal who listened to what’s been going on for me and immediately picked up the phone to call her colleague a few rooms over. “Hey, you wanna switch patients? I’ve got a classically trained singer here and I think she needs you, not me.” Minutes later I’m in a room with an ENT Speech Pathologist, also a classically trained singer, with a piano in her exam room. I can’t tell you what it means to share that I used to be able to sing “Les oiseaux dans la charmille” and now can’t hardly sing higher than an A above the staff and have someone really fucking understand that. She gasped. I cried no less than 4 times. It’s fine. Anyway, she had me vocalize for a bit and identified some tremulousness in the frequency domain that has measurable on acoustic analysis. There is some minor concern there about an essential tremor, but she told me not to worry too much about that yet so I’ll try not to. She thinks my dysphonia is likely multifactorial. I’ll be going to voice therapy, seeing a physical therapist who ideally specializes in working with singers, and aggressively treating the Eosinophilic Esophagitis & reflux. I also had a flexible scope done and there were no abnormalities, which is great.

Idk, I cried a lot and it just felt really good to have someone understand the way this particular problem has been breaking my actual soul and spirit. I can’t express the way I want to anymore. She strongly feels like this can be remedied. I hope she’s right.

Lastly, the Department of Neurology, appointment #1

I’ve got a few appointments with this department - we’re addressing my near-passing out when standing, numbness of the limbs here and there, as well as constant base of the skull headaches. At appointment #1 we did autonomic nervous system testing. I didn’t come out of this with any clear answers. The tilt table test did not cause me to feel like I was going to pass out. They also did a sudomotor function test, which looks at small nerve fibers that control sweating. This was a little abnormal and could potentially point to early small fiber neuropathy, but the results here are not definitive and require further testing.

So that’s where things stand right now: some answers, some validation, some big question marks, and a lot of waiting. I don’t have a neat bow to tie on this yet, and I think that’s okay. For the first time in a very long time, I feel like I’m not being dismissed or told it’s all in my head or handed a shrug and a prescription and sent on my way. I feel like people are actually looking, actually listening, actually trying to understand the whole picture of my body instead of one symptom at a time.

It’s weird to hold grief and hope at the same time - grief for the years I spent being told I was fine when I absolutely was not, and hope that maybe I’m finally on a path that leads somewhere better. I don’t know what the next steps will bring, or how long any of this will take, or how much fighting I’ll still have to do. But I do know this: I trust myself. I know my body. I wasn’t imagining things. And even slow progress is still progress.

I’ll keep updating as I learn more. Thank you for caring, for reading, for holding space for this messy, ongoing process. Healing isn’t linear, but for the first time in a long time, it feels like we’ve got some momentum.

It has been disheartening to watch people fall prey to what, to me, is obvious propaganda. If you don’t know already, Alex wasn’t at a protest, and he never brandished a gun. Renee wasn’t blocking the road, and she didn’t run him over. Liam’s dad did not abandon him, they ambushed them and tried to use a 5 year old as bait. There’s no need to comment if you disagree - I won’t be entertaining you here. I live here. Minneapolis is my home. There is nothing you could say to make me question what my own eyes (and the eyes of people I personally know) have seen.

It has been encouraging to watch my community come together and build networks of care and support. It goes without saying that the exhaustion in the hearts of Minnesotans is seemingly endless right now, and yet we continue to show up for one another. Unshakeable. Local shops have transformed into community respite hubs and donation super centers. Restaurant staff show up to protests and vigils with warm food to share. The Twin Cities and surrounding areas - even as far as Rochester and likely further - have created hyperlocal networks doing the work their government is not: feeding folks who are hungry, providing essential supplies, crowdfunding rent assistance, baking for each other, and so much more.

My older two children request to have an S-O-N most nights - a sleepover night - because they are both too afraid to sleep alone. Helicopters and drones can be heard constantly. My son asks in the mornings if anyone will be taken before he gets home from school - and we are not even the target right now. My heart aches for my community, and my friends and neighbors of color who are feeling this fear a hundred times stronger. If you still hold the stance of, “you have nothing to worry about if you’re legal,” and “they are here for the violent crime offenders,” I truly don’t know how to help you at this point. There are mountains of evidence to refute those two statements.

Meanwhile, the mundane keeps mundane-ing along. Every day I clock into my job (which I love btw) and hear people tell me how their biggest problem that day is that they didn’t realize they signed up for a subscription service. I pay my internet bill. I do a load of laundry. I make my doctor appointments at the Mayo Clinic. My youngest child turns 2 in a few days. I cannot believe she is already this old. I cannot afford any birthday presents for her, but luckily, she will not remember this birthday anyway. I am unlikely to forget it. I don’t suppose I will ever forget living through this part of history.

I’m painting again, and my spouse and I are working on a song. We haven’t written together in a very long time, and I’m excited to share that with you all once it’s ready. Hopefully this week, if we’re really on top of it.

As I write to you from the dimly lit bedroom next to my sleeping toddler, know that I am thinking of you and wishing you well. We are fighting the good fight, and it is my dearest hope and belief that we will come out the other side having created something new - something better.

love,

cat

HOW CAN I HELP?

Okay, yes. Great question. Here are some vetted places you can throw your money toward that will have an immediate impact here in the Twin Cities.

The Columbia Heights School District is near and dear to my heart. I used to work here, and my kids go to school in this district. This is also the district Liam went to school in.

There is one for each of the schools and the family center.

Columbia Heights High School: https://gofund.me/1b26e2c3c

Columbia Academy: https://gofund.me/b9b785a26

Highland Elementary: https://gofund.me/271c89166

North Park School for Innovation: https://gofund.me/b9406a952

Valley View Elementary: https://give.mn/g1iz7g

Family Center: https://gofund.me/e090e916a

Community Aid Network Mn (CANMN)

MIRAC

Immigrant Rapid Response Fund

There are also a great many others that I haven’t listed here, both orgs and personal fundraisers, and they are pretty easy to find by looking. I encourage you to do so.

Integration between the two has been difficult for me to understand and implement, and there was a time there where I was so focused on sOmAtIc HaCkS that I lost sight of being the messy ass human I was born to be. I mean, my god. I’m a 3rd line, after all. Nothing about my expression of being will ever be tidy.

We’re here to just…be alive, and somehow even that becomes something we think we can fail at. We create arbitrary markers of success on a societal level, and those things steer us into a sea of self-hatred.

My authority is emotional. I laugh until tears blur my vision and cry until there’s nothing left. It’s funny to me how my algorithms reflect this and support me in it. Something beautiful to see, music to feel through my bones, and suddenly the body exhales. And in that release, I notice the reflexes that have kept me “safe” for years.

The question remains:
Can I let go of the performances that protect me?
I don’t mean performances like those on the stage. But the small, quiet performances that I offer to the people around me. Despite years of intentional unraveling in this arena, I still catch the unconscious programming spinning its disc to boot up. It’s literally annoying as fuck. I want to perform only by choice. I want my acts to be conscious, not survival instincts disguised as generosity, charm, or humor. I don’t want my response to feeling unsafe to be to, essentially, lie.

They say that for the emotional authority beings, there is “no truth in the now.” When truth is fragmented, clarity slips like light through fractured glass. All I can do is watch. I understand the dance between my open Spleen (health, in this context) and undefined G (identity), between letting go and gripping tighter. The symptoms feel untenable at times, and I notice how quickly I start searching for a physiological explanation - something concrete, something that will make it make sense. And hell who knows, maybe I will find something there eventually. All I know is that I cannot stop myself from looking for it - I’ve tried. I am aware of the things I ought to release. I know what is contributing negatively to my health. And still, I watch myself holding on. For a long time now, I’ve held back from sharing my feelings about this publicly, because I was fearful I would be judged about it. That hasn’t changed really - and realistically, I will be judged by it. People will think they have all the right answers to my life. What has changed is my reaction to that. Go ahead.

People who have never lost their voice take it for granted. I certainly did, until I lost my voice in a multitude of ways. My singing voice and my self-voice, both of which used to express with no effort.

I’ve been thinking about time a lot lately. The minutes I spend here and now - they are mine to stretch, shrink, shape. Ten minutes can disappear entirely or expand to support me. I manipulate it without thinking, filtered through how I feel, how my body remembers, how I choose to assign meaning. And sometimes, in the stretch and pull, I can remind myself that there is no “linear.” There is only experience, malleable, fluid, living.

And sometimes, letting go comes in fragments. In small softening. A breath unpoliced. A laugh allowed to echo. A choice to move differently than I have before. A recognition that parts of me - once hidden, locked away - are still here, still waiting, still learning to breathe.

I hope you are doing well and feeling loved. Please feel free to reply or leave a comment to let me know how things are for you, dear friend.

love,

cat fitz

I have been doing ’s Omen Walk for the 4th (???? I think) year in a row. It’s a cool practice, and I encourage you to check it out. This is the first time I’ve felt the majority of the omens land in my spirit. There’s less of me going, “is THAT the omen? Maybe THAT was.” and more of an “that was definitely it.”

You can check out their post to learn more about it here: https://substack.com/@hawkstemple/p-153390227

One of the ways I’ve been inviting My Self back in is reviving my love of reading. Here’s the books I read this year, all of which I’d recommend.

*this link was wrong initially, I updated it.

I’ve got one spot left for my Intuitive Playlists, which I’ll be retiring after this round. Feel free to reply to this email or DM me if that spot belongs to you. :)

Continuing projects past the initial starting phase has been perhaps one of my biggest challenges in my professional and creative lives, and gaining this understanding of the dopamine effects in the life cycle of creation has changed a lot for me, at least in terms of my own framing. I think parts of me already knew it intuitively, because each time I have something I am very excited about, I attempt to create it all in one sitting, because in all likelihood, I may not return to see it finished. I would return again and again to content piles I’d made months or even years prior, and see that I’d left 90% completed works in the graveyard of my Squarespace archives.

For a while, I thought it was perhaps some sort of secret, subconscious lack of confidence. Perhaps I was refusing to finish my projects because I doubted their ability to succeed! That never felt quite right to me, but enough coaches and therapists brought it up as a potential answer that I figured, hey, maybe I just can’t see myself here. But I have faith in the things I wish to share with the world. It’s more than that. It’s one part chemistry, yes, and it’s also got ties to my CPTSD recovery.

Sometimes I think about how much I’ve given away in the name of being in service to others, that like, was supposed to be mine. It breaks something within me.

My partner was afraid being a parent would mean she couldn’t be a musician anymore, and so I gave that away for myself in an effort to give her every opportunity instead. Why did I do that? Coaches and therapists would suggest a fear of my power, or a fear of being seen, and none of that ever really rang true for me. I realized today that it has been an inability to believe and accept that there are some things that I have a right to, that belong to me. That I am allowed to demand. A part of me that believed I would not receive love unless I was always making life easier for others. I see now that I’ve done versions of that all my life. And the pisser is, no one made me do this. No one forced me to give my time, my art, my energy away. I chose it, over and over, and I didn’t realize how much it was costing me.

Another layer of my abuser’s impact on me falling away at last.

That belief is falling away now, but there’s grief in that, too. I’m grateful to understand it - even while I’m still inside it - because it means I can step forward more whole.

Lately, I feel the pull to create again. I want to make junk journals, to re-learn music theory (most of which vanished in the fog of autistic burnout right before I graduated college in 2012), to spend my time painting and creating, learning to sew, and taking some time to be beholden to my own creative energy. Sometimes the grief of what might have been feels unbearable - like the version of me who could sight-read effortlessly still lives somewhere inside, waiting.

That’s what has my attention right now: even when the grief of lost potential feels heavy, the impulse to return - to create, to play, to reclaim what’s mine - is still alive. I am still alive.

So, I’m letting that guide me now.
I’m painting again. I’m learning again. I’m giving myself back to myself - it’s slowl, clumsy as fuck, and I’m giving myself as much grace as I can manage while still making sure my kids are cared for.

Maybe that’s the wisdom for now:
You just have to begin, knowing you deserve to.

love you!

cat fitz

I find myself reaching a lot more for offline life. I wish to spend my time drawing. And dancing. And painting. And writing. And singing. And sitting on my porch. Trying new mediums. Cooking. Baking. Many of the hobbies of my childhood also call my name, like reading novels in one sitting and playing video games.

I found that I currently have little time to devote to such activities. I am carving out the space, because I do not wish to throw my life force energy into the well of “have I made enough money to survive yet?” any longer. The answer is often no, but whether it is yes or no, it doesn’t have the impact on my quality of life the way turning my attention toward the pursuit of peace does.

I’m going to be doing another round of The Artist’s Way (loosely, which is kinda how I do everything. Loosely. Within the frame of the thing but without compromising my own rhythms, you know?), and if there is anyone who wishes to join me on that endeavor, well, that would be fun, wouldn’t it? We can share a little or a lot.

I find that I have kept a lot of my more dramatic and/or childish art away from the world. I look through my sketchbooks and song snippets and I find things that I now think are beautiful and emotional, but at the time resisted sharing because I hate the idea that someone might look at one piece of anything I make and assume the whole of me. But I can’t control that, can I? And people are doing that anyway all the time, just not with my art. So why stifle myself about it?

It’s fun to watch myself meander my way into fuller and fuller self-acceptance. I am definitely working through some inner teenager things lately.

My Human Design work is still present, though it’s mostly taking place in person at markets and in 1:1 readings. In my own personal work with it, I find myself turning more toward the health piece of things, as well as the true-self unraveling which has always ben my favorite way to experience the system.

Anyway, yeah. I can no longer treat my life force like currency. I can give myself all the practical reasons in the world, but the fire within me refuses to dim regardless. (Thank goodness that is continues to burn in spite of me.) All it is asking of me is my presence, and I think I’m ready to stop resisting it.

A few quick snapshots of what I doodled whilst writing this:

Okay, love you bye!

And of course, as all crash outs tend to do at some point or another, it ended. I shook my spirit like an etch-a-sketch and came back to my center. I have no doubt that anxiety is a player in my health journey and she certainly exacerbates the lot of my physical sensations, but she isn’t the root cause.

I sat last week with a dear friend in a coffee shop - our first time meeting in person, it was a delight - and shared that I don’t think hypochondria is a real thing. Some people are very sensitive to any changes in their bodies, but that doesn’t make those changes any less real or present. For example, I know I have a yeast infection (tmi? I fear I do not care) before they can pick it up on tests. More than once, I’ve gone in to get the treatment, they told me they found nothing, and I go back a few days later and wouldn’t you know it? There it is. Each time, the doc says, “wow! You really know your body!” Yeah. I do.

You know what I’ve been thinking a lot about lately? Weight as a protective mechanism. A lot of people (often women) who have experienced complex trauma will end up putting on unexplained weight. The body’s way of creating a physical protective boundary where one otherwise does not exist. I’ve been thinking about this in the context of my taking a weight loss drug, Zepbound. In a way, forcing myself to shed that protective layer and face some things that maybe I otherwise wouldn’t have been ready to face yet. Well, I mean, at the same time, I really took my time making the decision to take this drug¹, so what is Right Timing but the timing that is happening, you know what I mean? Either way, I am not surprised that I am swirling in a storm of Things That Need Reckoning.

The first thing that happened, was my partner sat me down and asked me point blank if I had been harboring some resentment toward her. I had been silently fighting against those feelings in my spirit, and actually have gotten a therapist again after a handful of years without because I was hoping they could help me process some of the big anger that’s been coming out of me at my partner. I was surprised that she asked, but I was honest in my response and we were able to have a really emotionally productive discussion around it. I also was able to express that I have been triggered a lot by her lately, which doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense until you remember that I am someone who spent a great many years in dissociative freeze, separate from my body and in a state of survival that wouldn’t let me access a lot of my own experience. As I’ve been unmaking and divesting from being the person that fixes everything (at the expense of my own health, mentally, physically, and emotionally), it’s becoming clearer to me how much I have still been suppressing.

Additionally, I learned some new information about my childhood abuser that’s dredged up all those old feelings again for me, and I am now recognizing that there are things I was certain I’d gotten over, or forgiven, or worked through that actually….. I haven’t. I am angry in new ways, without the empathy I used to have for this person, and I think it’s good for my health. I experienced some things that a child should never, ever have to experience and I should have been pissed off long before I was ever trying to reason my way into seeing his trauma and the why behind his actions. Like. There are literally podcast recordings of me out there somewhere yip yapping about how I was holding that forgiveness and what it meant to me. And you know what? At that time, maybe that’s exactly what I needed. That was the layer of healing I was able to access.

But/and: I am learning a lot about how my version of compassion often comes at the expense of my own well-being.

And I’m rewriting that.
Sometimes, rage is the answer.
At the VERY LEAST, when it comes to emotional processing—it’s allowed to be.

I’ve been fantasizing about singing this song at some kind of a cabaret or something immediately after my abuser yeets this earth, and that helps. Dark? Maybe. Honest? Yeah. A lyric I’ll highlight:

“’Cause when the villains fall, the kingdoms never weep.
No one lights a candle to remember.
No—no one mourns at all, when they lay them down to sleep.
So don’t tell me that I didn’t have it right.
Don’t tell me that it wasn’t black and white.
After all you put me through,
Don’t say it wasn’t true,
That you were not the monster that I knew.”

Anyway. It’s not like he’s on his deathbed or anything. It’s just that eclipse season is reaching into my guts and rearranging some things, and this is where I’m at with it right now. Catch me at the end of eclipse season for updates on this, LOL. We shall see how I feel then.

Anyway, things are moving at lightening pace lately, and I’m sure you can feel that too. We appear to be on the absolute strangest timeline. 450 on-again, off-agains about tariffs right next to a headline that they have decided to un-extinct the direwolf. ???? I am side-eyeing It All, and yet here we are together. Each moment and each breath is a chance for us to make something beautiful and meaningful in the midst of all this turbulence.

I hope to write to you again sometime soon. :)

love,

Cat Fitz

¹ - I got turned onto tirzepatide by a good friend who was microdosing it. She had sent me some resources that pointed to potential benefits for joint pain and brain fog—and as someone who “has” fibromyalgia, that was very compelling. The weight loss was a possible bonus, but not my focus. I actually would have preferred to stay at the microdose, but it wasn’t financially sustainable out-of-pocket. So I went the prescription route. The trouble is, insurance doesn’t let you stay on the lowest dose. So, yanno. It is what it is until I’m in a different financial place—but I’ve definitely trialed and errored the shit out of this medication. As of this writing, I’ve lost 20 pounds in 3 months, and the reduction in joint pain and brain fog has been significant.

🚨 PRICE INCREASE ALERT 🚨

If you’ve been wanting to grab a 1:1 reading with me, I encourage you to do so now! My prices will be increasing at the end of this month to $250. If you want to grab a reading at the current price, you can book here. :)

HEY so fun times!!! You can actually find me ✨in person✨ a few times in the very near upcoming future. I will be at the Fat Flea market April 12th and 13th (that’s this weekend babes!!), doing Human Design minis.

I will also be doing minis at the Liminal Lounge in Saint Paul on the following dates: 4/19, 5/10, 5/17, and 6/28. There are 8 slots per day, and they tend to fill up. So grab one if you want one. :) 20 minutes with me for $30. You can book here. (You can also just show up, but again, no guarantees there will be an opening.)

My Personality Earth placement is the 47.3 This is the gate of Oppression, and line 3 is Self-Oppression.

Exaltation: The conscious and well-integrated being whose natural right action will eventually come to see the unfoundedness of its oppression. The eventual realization that one is really o.k.

Detriment: A self-oppression so highly energized that it may prove irreversible and destructive. Extreme difficulty in realizing one's self-worth.

In the Gene Keys system, 47.3 is my “Life’s Work.” Here’s what it has to say:

To live your life with this as your Prime Gift is to hold nothing back from the world. You will very likely face many tests in your life, but you are also graced with an almost holy ability to surrender and accept your plight. This does not mean that you are to become a victim of others or of the events in your life. What matters is the spirit in which you meet life's challenges. You are a very strong person, but your strength lies in your acceptance and compassion, rather than in your perseverance. Because of your deep understanding about the real purpose of suffering and adversity in life, you can really give hope to others. You will learn that life is not made better through the mind but through the heart, and you will always be in a position to share this gift with others.

I’ve been grappling with the fine line distinction between becoming a victim of my circumstances and confronting the very real systemic challenges that are creating them. And you know what? It is so easy to fall into despair when things aren’t going well and it feels like it’s just one damn thing after another.

But I have been waking up to myself again. It feels somewhat like coming out of the Dark Ages. I think I’ve been in a bit of a disempowered frame of mind for *gulp* probably about three years now. Maybe even a little more than that. I watched as my mental landscape became more and more pessimistic and bitter, and as I shifted into a space of expecting the worst, all of the time. And what’s interesting to me is that I can see that I needed to fall into that pit. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the Disney movie Brave, but there’s a frame at the end when all is well again and it shows the mom as the changed version of herself. She looks grounded, serene, settled, and rejouvenated. She’s just walked through a very challenging and traumatic experience with her daughter, and she is coming out of that with an entirely new-to-her way of looking at her own life. I kind of feel that way right now.

It is life’s nature to be chaotic, and decidedly un-smooth. Challenge is an integral part of the experience and it’s not going anywhere. The ebb and flow of ease and challenge can be looked at as a flick of a writer’s quill; the great Writer energy that is outside of our control. It’s all plot points. It doesn’t have to be so personal.

I am entering 2025 with a renewed fighter’s spirit, and a word of the year! I haven’t had one of those for a few years now.

So, yeah. That’s the energy you can expect from me in the coming months.

What about you?

You may feel like now is not the time to set goals and enact change.

You may feel like now is the time to set goals and enact change.

Both are right, so long as you are following your own compass and honoring your body’s needs. As the resident undefined G center¹, I feel it is my duty to tell you that goal-setting can be as rigid or as fluid as you want it to be. Detail is wonderful, but not if you make it a prison.

If you have found yourself in a space of wanting to reclaim your true self, the you that you were before all that shit (whatever it may be) happened in your life, me too.

I created a lil workbook for myself and for you this season.

You can grab it here.

Hope you’re doing well as 2025 makes its presence known to us. :)

love,

Cat Fitz

¹ - reminding you that the G center (sometimes called the Identity center) is the center that is all about universal love, identity, and direction. Those of us who have it undefined have a very fluid sense of self and are meant to “try on” a lot of different identities to see what fits.

Sometimes I’m like, oh, ADHD isn’t so bad. It makes me funny and all my ideas are fuckin’ weird and off the wall and I love that about myself. And then all of a sudden I’ll be at the kitchen table, unable to decide if I should do the laundry, or the dishes, or apply for better jobs, or spend that time working one of my side gigs, or practice music, or update my website and drop some of my offerings, or write a Substack, or hell, eat a meal!!, or … it goes on and on. Executive dysfunction. Or, an inability to see where my energy will actually be best spent. It’s like a glitch. Sometimes I think this wouldn’t even be a problem in a different world. In this world, I am asked to make the morally-impossible decision of: financial security, time together as a family, or progress on your actual dreams and goals? I know that it is possible to have a life where all three can coexist joyfully because I see it happening for others. I am in a room that offers me a labyrinth of strings that I can follow, and one of them is the one that leads me to that reality. I search for it.

Anyway, as you can see, I chose Substack. But I do have 14 tabs open for other things I might do while I write this post or directly afterward.¹ (You don’t want to know how many tabs are open on my phone, lol.)

I could talk about the election results, but I’m not going to. One, because a great many people more eloquent and politically well-versed than me have already offered their words up. Two, because the winner of the election changes nothing about how I intend to move through the world: loving people well, supporting those who need help to the best of my ability, and creating things that make people pause, think, and feel. I will say only this: I feel this feeling, like, we’ve collectively thrown a bunch of stuff into the air, and it hasn’t come down yet. A waiting. A holding pattern. The story of this election is unfinished, and time will show us what that means.

I posted a video to my Close Friends Instagram story² the other day, a snippet of a video audition I did for Great Comet. I captioned it with, “My body wasn't really feeling ready to do an audition yet, but nevertheless we persist.” I got an astounding number of DMs about it, expressing how much they liked it. This led me to a grander thought train about brains and negativity.

You know, there are some parts of my life I always swore I’d never talk about until certain players in the story died. I don’t think I’m going to hold to that anymore.

Whew! I typed that, and this song came on, and I just wept.

In Human Design, we talk a lot about the process of deconditioning, and how fucking difficult it is to go home to your family of origin and still maintain the person you’ve become. It’s almost like there is some kind of energetic slot that you magnetically slide right into despite your best efforts, especially if you aren’t really paying attention & trying to walk a little differently, bit by bit. (This is called the Penta in Human Design, if you’re down the HD rabbit hole.)

Traversing the (many hidden from me by my own brain) memories of my childhood often feels like walking through a haunted house. Not in the gimmicky, meant-to-be-fun, things-pop-out-at-you way, but in gaunt, cobwebbed, something’s lost here, something’s unseen kind of way.

I think a part of me used to believe that I couldn’t write about my childhood experiences if I forgave the person who handed them to me, or if I still loved them, or if I felt like they have come a long way in terms of healing what they need to heal. But it’s not like it’s gone. You know? It’s like the idea of teaching children what impact means. You take an egg and you have the kiddo throw it. It, of course, breaks. You then have the child apologize to the egg, and ask them, “Did saying sorry put the egg back together?” Of course, it didn’t. The same principle applies here. And as I watch one of my siblings really struggle with the ramifications of this person’s actions, my desire to say more about it grows. Watching ancestral patterns repeat is so, so heartbreaking.

(I hope y’all listen to these, lol. I am soundtracking!!!!!)

Sometimes, healing feels…fucking stupid. I feel like I have been prying myself free from this part of my life forever. Bit by bit. Talon by talon. And it can’t really be any other way, can it? One of the coolest things I learned during my time in EMDR is that you will never go somewhere you can’t handle in session, because your brain has a protective mechanism and it just won’t let you. For me, when I started to touch on something that was too much for me to bear, my mind would just go blank. Poof! “What were we just talking about?,” I would ask, and my therapist would just nod her head gently and suggest I just keep following whatever next thread came up in my mind. Everything in its own right timing.

For my fellow 5th line in Human Design beloveds (and anyone else that finds this resonant) - people know you more than you think. Someone that I’ve only met one time sent me a reel about soup because she knows I love soup. She just knows that. ??? I cried. Clearly I’m having an extra tender day. But people are paying attention and loving me in small ways and I’m not even close to aware of all the ways or all the people and isn’t that just so sweet and sublime and wonderful and human?

I’ll leave you with that today. :)

I hope you are letting the sunlight touch your face today.

love,

cat fitz

¹ - okay so I did two tarot readings & mini playlists, worked on some virtual assistant work for a client, signed myself up to be an affiliate for Creative Market, and completed some paperwork for the state all whilst writing this lol

² - all paid subscribers to this Substack can have access to my Close Friends if you wish! It’s a raw place, it’s where I process really fresh emotional things as well as share more intimate details about my life. If you wanna see what Emotional Authority in Human Design looks like, that’s the place.

I turned on the porch light and sat in a chair directly in front of the front door, so they would see me and not knock. I didn’t want the kids to wake up and get scared, you know? I calmed explained: yes, the pain is here, yes, it’s been getting worse, no fever, yes weird poop, yes nausea, no puking, etc etc etc. They then shuttled me over to the hospital. I was asked multiple times to rate my pain from 1 to 10. I can’t do that very well. I just kind of guess at what someone else might say. When you have chronic pain, your ability to gauge pain levels becomes skewed. I answered with a, “6 or 7 maybe?” and when the nurse gave me questioning eyes, I followed up with, “it’s kept me awake, I can’t sleep through it.” I shared that my mother had her gallbladder out at almost the same age (and I would later learn that my maternal grandmother did, too), and they immediately ordered an ultrasound. The gal who did it chatted me up about how slow it had been that night (she’d been able to decorate the board with Halloween doodles, she never gets to do that kind of thing) and said at the end, “I can’t officially say, of course, but I think what we were thinking it is, it’s that. I see what I am pretty sure are immobile gallstones, and it might be a little infected.” And indeed, she was right. The doctor came to talk to me next, and asked if I wanted more pain medication. I declined, because what they had already given me had lessened it enough, and taken away the nausea. I remembered my mother, doubled over in pain after she yelled out. I remember her asking for my stepdad, who was a first responder. I don’t remember who called him, or how she got to the hospital. I might have been 8? I remember we went to the neighbor’s house, and I was very afraid for her. I’d not seen her in pain like that before (or since, actually). I wondered again about my own pain tolerance. Is that the effects of dissociation still? Or am I just like, secretly a badass? Unknown. Both are probably true. Except, I’m a full badass, not a secret one, thank you very much.

So, I got there at 3:50ish in the morning and went back for surgery around 10:45am. I was more afraid of being put under than I was of the surgery. I fight that total loss of control. It’s freaky! I worry, like, what if I’m “out” but I’m actually fully aware of everything that’s happening. Hmm???? What then?! Horrifying. Anyway, they gave me some Xanax before we left the pre-op area and then wheeled my involuntarily-grinning, happy ass into surgery. I know the anesthesia was in the IV. I remember then putting the little mask on and telling me to breathe deeply. I don’t even remember them counting down or anything. Next thing I knew, I became aware that I was awake and simply sobbing in the post-op area. My youngest brother pukes his brains out, so I guess being an emotional wreck is the better end of the deal. ;) And I say “I became aware that I was awake” because I was absolutely already awake for a while. God knows what kind of shit came out of my mouth before I knew I was awake. If I could have a recording of THAT!!! When I regained my awareness, I was asking what time it was and where my spouse was. And the nurse was comforting me with a tone of voice that said, “we’ve been crying for a while now.”

I had a laparoscopic cholecystectomy, which is a fancy way to say they removed my gallbladder with robots while the surgeon essentially played a video game to operate said robots. 4 small incisions. Gall bladder was sloinked out of one of the incisions, typically the one near the belly button. I went home the same day, and was told there’s a 1-2 week recovery time.

It is incredibly strange to think - just a few short days ago, I had all of the organs I came with. Now?

I feel like I have lost another layer of my filter. (I’ve felt that way a lot of times, so one has to wonder: how many goddamn layers are there?! A lot. A lot.)

The gallbladder (and the liver) are both connected to anger. I have wondered if removing my gall bladder has removed some of my barriers to anger expression as well. When I tell you I snapped at my partner the other day…whew. I believe I said something along the lines of, “fucking get your shit together, god damnit.” Now, that’s not how I want to express my feelings & I went ahead and apologized, but apparently it’s time for me to learn how to be kind and respectful whilst also feeling white-hot pissed off about something. My historical M.O. has been to keep those kinds of feelings inside until I am completely cooled down, and at that time decide if it’s worth it to bring up (or not). I almost always tended to decide on the “or not” option. I’ll let you come to your own conclusions about how that was affecting my body. (*points emphatically at the space which once held my gall bladder*)

Related: There are some things I’ve been holding on to that I think I’m ready to let go of now. One ouchie point in particular. A former teacher, mentor, and friend once projected onto me the worst possible version of myself - someone who came around only to get something from her, and someone whose care was disingenuous. We had spent a great deal of time together, and I think it wounded me so deeply because I really felt she should have known me better than that, and known that I was coming to see her because I loved her. This same person, in the same conversation, said to me: “Well, maybe you’re not really a musician.” Reader, this was years ago. Magnolia was like, 1. So it’s been 6ish years, and I could not release that anger and pain. I let those words become a prophecy, and I stopped performing. I stopped singing. I stopped being a musician. I really took that so damn personally, and it’s got me giggling a little bit now. I am ready to release that, and to forgive that person. She was doing her best, and so was I. She should have known better, and for whatever reason, she didn’t. It happens. I don’t have to let it hurt any more.

My creative energy is brewing anew once again. I am starting to sing every day. I am auditioning for things. I prepped my watercolors for painting. And I said this actual sentence to my spouse: “I’m about to get real weird with paper-mâché. You’ve been informed.” I don’t know what’s going to come out of me, but it seems something will be.

Today is the day of the election. I woke up with great enthusiasm for life. Whatever happens, whoever wins, I think we all know that there is a great deal of work to be done. I can’t control the outcome of this election, but I can choose how I respond to it. I can choose how I am going to show up in my own community, and how I am going to share my love and resources with those around me.

They show us a never-ending cycle of anxiety-inducing shit to keep our attention. If you pay attention to all that for too long, you become addicted to it. Your adrenals and cortisol are being harvested for the system. That cycle leads you to missing out on your life. Your life. And the love and beauty that does truly exist all around you.

Find your people. Gather together with them. Dream up and lean into the future that you want to see. We can create that. Here’s a lil playlist.

Take care of each other.

love,

cat fitz

There is a fine line between longing that is healthy, fruitful, inspiring, and energizing, and longing that is…decidedly not those things. I know I toe that line most days.

Sometimes I get my knickers in a twist about my capacity, like, being aggravated that I don’t have more. My best friend Kjirstin visited this past weekend and we went to Valleyscare together, and I was reminded of previous visits where I was too depleted to even leave my house when she visited, much less go to a whole ass theme park. So, my capacity is in fact steadily increasing. I’m just impatient (which I’m sure comes as a shock to everyone ;) ).

You know how people always talk about having the courage to do The Thing and “the thing you’re stopping yourself from doing is right where your power is!!!” Etc etc ? Surely you’ve heard this. This… is not a truth for me. There isn’t One Great Big Thing that I’m stopping myself from doing because I’m afraid it won’t succeed or whatever. There are many many micro ideas, most of which I have an equal amount of desire to do. I feel like, in some ways, it would be a lot easier if there WAS some grandiose dream I was afraid of seizing. Having it this way is so ambiguous. I mean, exciting and fun too, but it is a challenge to know where best to spend my energy. One of my intuitive pals said, “hey, maybe it’s subconscious.” Maybe it is. We shall discover together, I suppose.

I was listening to “I’m the Only One” by Melissa Etheridge the other day and was just… profoundly struck by how much I used to romanticize the idea of that. “And I’m the only one who’d walk across a fire for you.” BRUH. Absolutely not. Why is that something we pass to our daughters? Handed down generation to generation, this idea of hemorrhaging the woman’s resources for “the good” of the family. Or, as my friend says, the fracking of the feminine¹. A younger me thought the idea of going to any distance to prove the depth of my care was a really meaningful, romantic, rosy concept. Oh, how great my love must be. And, of course, the underlying fear & need being met by sacrificing myself in this way: Oh, how safe I will be in that love, because who could ever abandon a love so incomparable? Uh-oh.

A song with a similar vibe that I have also loved:

(I still love it lol)(I’d love to play this character one day.)

Or songs in which I see my mother and other matriarch figures in my life:

“Days made of bargains I made because I thought as a wife I was meant to, and now my life is shattered and laid bare.”

That isn’t a pattern I’m interested in continuing. I cannot just martyr myself. It always feels like the most helpful thing (for me, even!) in the moment but if it’s eroding my spirit, it’s not helpful at all in the end. The quote about children’s happiness being tied most closely to the happiness of the mother comes to mind a lot for me lately.

Anyway, as per usual, lots of thoughts that aren’t connected but also are connected.

Until next time. :)

love,

cat fitz

¹ - note that for me, “the feminine” is intended purely as an energetic thing.

Coming up sometime soon:

• Corey and I are going to start recording videos and original music for a children’s educational Youtube channel. Being in a school setting has me really in kid mode a lot of the time, and we already have a small arsenal of kid music ready to go that we’ve created for our own children. The working title right now is the Fitz Factory. Stay tuned for more - we’re both feeling very excited about it.

• I am opening up my online Human Design Readings for a little bit here. Typically, you can really only get these from me in person, but I’ve had enough requests for virtual that I am going to open my books for about a month. You can book a reading here. We can do a beginner reading if Human Design is new to you, or we can do something more focused where we dig into something specific in your life. I am also available for parenting-related readings and couples readings. Feel free to reach out if you are unsure if I’m the right fit for you - we can chat and see! <3

I am often feeling into the space between goal setting in an authentic way, and trying to build a life of ideals that I can’t follow through on anyway (undefined heart). (Which isn’t to say people with an undefined heart can’t follow through on anything, it’s just that our energy to do so ebbs and flows, it is not consistent. Me wanting something and committing to something doesn’t mean I’m gonna do it. It has to come from somewhere else within me.) (anyway.)

I find myself currently wanting to do some things. Maybe.

• I want to slink my way into teaching, starting with a Tier 1 license and scooting my way up.

• I want to take care of my body in new ways and actually look into what I need to do to strengthen my knees, strengthen myself overall, and improve my ability to tolerate cardio. Find a functional/holistic dentist. Fix my fucking vaulted palate, which is fucking with my voice the more it moves. I am aggravated by this, can you tell? lol

• I want to actually implement structures into my business, which is currently on hospice care if you will, so that it can bloom again in a way that’s sustainable.

How much of that is a true desire for me? How much of that is influence from my current environments? I don’t know. I kind of can’t know.

A brilliant friend of mine, Jes Fields, posted this reel the other day. I found it particularly resonant, especially as I face (once again) this desire of wanting the expand into a life that isn’t constant financial insecurity issues, and feeling apprehension that, you know, what if it’s just not possible for me? What if it is my destiny to struggle in this way…forever? You know, all the fear that comes up around that. (And all the life evidence that exists to support that fear.)

And if I reflect on my life up to this point, I can say with confidence that I very rarely know a decision is correct until after it’s made. Yes, I wait and I let my emotional wave settle before I make most decisions these days, but even then, there’s always that floating mystique that wonders. I mean, it could always just be more data for my 3rd line. It could always be another trial and error moment. And that’s not a bad thing (nor does it mean the decision was “wrong,” but/and there remains an ache when I consider all the things I really thought I was going to do and be that simply never came to pass. And the why that I ask the universe about it, the why that will likely never be answered, because the answer is like…. Life telling me it’s committed to the bit, basically. “It’s all experiential, baby!!!” my spirit guides say to me with their sunglasses and tie-dye. (and also, wanting begets more wanting, and pulls you further away from presence, but also also, it’s human to want and to hunger¹)

And the funny thing about it, is that I can feel it. It’s like I can feel the alternate timeline right next to the one I’m currently on, and I can feel what it might be like to live this life that I’ve been fantasizing about. I know intellectually that my fears increasing their volume indicates my closeness to being able to break through The Thing. My mind knows so many things, and yet, I so far have not been able to break through. And it’s been a long time.

So here we are again. I greet this precipice like an old friend. Hello, hello. Will we do it differently this time? Have I learned enough lessons about this? Am I ready to set this story down? Literally, only time will tell.

A lot of shifting into a new paradigm is the capacity to trust yourself to hold it and steward it well. I have long said that I trust myself, but that I don’t trust life to have my back. I think in realizing (again lol, the spiral) that it’s all just a mirror. As within so without.²

I did manage to avoid one pattern repeat! Right down to the wire, in fact. I applied to and was hired at Target for the sales floor, yeah? I was also almost immediately thereafter hired at the school I’m working at as an EA. I had already said yes to Target, and I also said yes to the school. The school paid a lot more than Target, and it wasn’t frickin retail, yanno? I told myself I would keep both for a multitude of reasons.

• one job won’t cover all the shit I need to pay for

• We do most of our shopping at Target and the discount is really good

• They really loved my interview and my team lead sounded excited to have me (a little bit of kryptonite for me when it comes to making good choices tbh), and she sounded cool too

I started working at the school and was floored by exactly how exhausted I was every day. I got home around 3:30 and had nothing left to give. Still, I reasoned that I would get used to it and would be perfectly able to do a few days a week at Target.

I did my orientation and during the tour of the store, I knew. I tried to picture myself in the back room, looking for product, and my body grew heavy. My eyes begged to close. Still, I told myself I was going to just give it a try to see what happened.

Well, I’ll tell you what happened. The day of my first shift arrived. My in-laws were visiting for my daughter’s birthday. I spent the day trying to corral my resistance; to boss it around. As the time inched closer to my shift, I became more and more distraught.

It was 20 minutes to my shift start, and I was upstairs trying to convince myself to get dressed, crying, mentally beating the shit out of myself because, oh god they really need people, and oh god my manager really likes me and I’ll probably like my team, and oh god we really need the money, I have to fix the money shit, this is all on me and I have to do it, what if my in-laws think I’m lazy or incompetent or stupid, blah blah blah, just slowly unhinging, you know?

Anyway, my spouse came upstairs as I was grappling with this and assured me that whichever choice I made, she would be incredibly proud of me. If I went, she would be proud because I was doing something new that was hard for me. If I didn’t go, she would be proud because I was taking good care of myself.

I monologued and talked myself through the fact that I shouldn’t be basing decisions about my life on the way perfect strangers might feel about it, and that I would be no good to myself or anyone else if I walk myself into the gallows of burnout again.

And then I did something precious me would have never done. It was two minutes to the start of my shift, and I called into HR and told them I was sorry, I just could do it, and resigned.

I haven’t regretted that decision even once. Every time it comes up, I’m like, “damn, I am so glad I’m not getting ready for a shift at Target right now.” 😂 it’s funny to me, because the whole time it was *extremely* obvious that I was making a poor choice for my own well-being, but I still had to really work through a multitude of people-pleasing behaviors in order to stop the pattern from starting again.

I’m proud of myself for breaking the glass in time.

Alright, now I feel like I’ve been yapping for a long time, so goodbye!! Have a good week!

Love,

Car Fitz

¹ - This makes me think of a lyric from Flight by Sutton Foster: “I don’t know, but maybe I’m just a fool. I should keep to the ground, I should stay where I’m at. Maybe everyone has hunger like this, and the hunger will pass, but I can’t think like that!”

² - I don’t believe anything in life is an all-the-time,  cut and dry thang. This is said more as an overarching observation, leaving room always for systemic oppression and other situations that don’t fit the mold here.

I’m trying to create a lovely sensory room for my Setting 3 ASD kindergarten kiddos. If you’re interested in contributing to that, here’s my Amazon teacher wish list!

You will be able to find me doing Human Design readings later this month at Nine Keys. Watch for a future email, wherein you’ll be able to pre-book spots if you wanna. :)

Some dear friends of mine are performing in Ashland Production’s Beauty & the Beast. You can find tickets here.

I had kind of a whammy after whammy montage toward the end of college that really propelled me into this era. Divorce —> being assaulted by a close friend —> having an audhd burnout moment during my senior jury where I literally couldn’t sight read music… mmm. It was a time. I then picked up and moved away with my boyfriend of only a few months to upstate New York, as any sane and emotionally regulated person would do (a story for another time).

I slip n’ slided my way into realizing that I was only a breath away from my childhood trauma at all times, and as I grew into adulthood, my carefully crafted coping mechanisms broke apart one by one, leaving me wide open and flailing for some kind of Plan that would allow me to avoid actually dealing with all this shit, but no Plan was to be had.

I needed to wail and beat my chest. I needed to be depressed and filled with venom for a while. I was being poisoned from the inside out and it was either feel it, or die.

Anyway, I did that for a while, and now the tide is turning anew. I looked at a photo of myself from this past weekend, and I saw Her. A shimmer of my true-blue Pollyanna gal, smiling back at me with her open-mouthed grin. She is returning, little by little, only this time it doesn’t feel contrived. It feels grounded. Even peaceful.

Hey, we’ll see. :)

xx,

Cat

We’ve been trying to find financial stability for a long time now. A little over a week ago, we discovered one of our cars is leaking brake fluid. One of the brake lines is toast, and it’s also shaking in a concerning way.

Yesterday, coincidentally the same day that I got contacted for a job interview, we discovered that our other car is having transmission issues. Corey changed the transmission oil and found exactly what you don’t want to find in the pan: pieces of metal.

Both our vehicles are now unsafe to drive. Our whole financial livelihood is dependent on family members who can’t really afford to be helping us either. I feel like life is beating the absolute shit out of me/us and I find myself yelling out to the universe, wondering what I could possibly be missing. What do you want me to do?! Because it keeps feeling like rock bottom, and then it’s like, but wait! ✨there’s more!✨

One thing I have learned for certain: the old ways of doing things? It doesn’t work anymore. It’s not enough to have a good resume. It’s not enough to make a good impression or to have good connections. Working harder no longer equates to being more successful. In some ways, I’m glad that’s the case. (Like, maybe we can all stop killing our selves for a hot $15/hr, yeah?) And in other ways, I’m pissed off about it! (You mean to tell me the way I’ve survived my whole life is no longer effective?)

The Pattern app has some choice words for one of the transits I’ve been going through for a hot minute: transiting Neptune squaring my natal midheaven:

That last bit has been soooooo fucking true. I do yield the same damn results no matter how long or short I work. Bruh.

I am extremely grateful that we have people who do love us enough to help us, and I do my best to tame any feelings of shame that arise as we doggy paddle our way through this part of life. I’m so tired of having to say, over and over again, no, sorry, we don’t have the money to cover rent. No, sorry, I can’t participate because I can’t afford it. No, things haven’t gotten any better. No, I can’t pay you back yet. I want to speed time forward so this period of life is done with, but there’s no way to do that. Over time, the self-belief of “I should be able to fix this” has softened into “but I can’t right now, and I know that I am trying my best.”

I am trying not to think too much about all the things that require a car. Freddy’s therapy. Getting them to school in the morning. Their doctor appointments next week, lol. Girl Scouts. It really is a shame that we live in such a car-centric society. (Here’s an Instagram account you might find interesting if you’re into walkable cities.)

In other, very cute and pure news, Freddy was in his first ever theater show this morning. It was extremely cute and pure. He sang and danced his little heart out, and he was so proud and excited. 🥹

Anyway, I shall leave you with one of my all-time favorite quotes:

I read somewhere that caterpillars go through something called “diapause.” Diapause is this spot in the transformation process where some caterpillars try desperately to cling to their larval life. They don’t want to change. They try to resist it. I think that’s probably because they have no idea what is coming up ahead. They have no idea that there could actually be something better at the end of themselves. They hate the fact that darkness could be good for them.

It’s a state of clinging. A state of unrest. We go through it too. There is something inside of us that rises up and begs to hold onto what we know, what is most familiar to us. We try to resist change. We look for people to be our lifeboats. We hate the fact that darkness could be good for us.

I don’t have to tell you how the rest of the story goes. You already know what happens to those caterpillars. You know what happens when they just let go.

- Hannah Brencher

love,

Cat Fitz

I had a voice lesson the other day - my first one in years. It’s with a teacher that I think is brilliant, and someone whom I also very much enjoy as a person. He will be able to help me, if I want that. If I keep showing up for that. The emotional push-pull is really loud about it right now. I am angry. I am angry that I stopped singing for so long that it became difficult. I am not sure it will be worth it to work to get it back. What if I can’t get it back? What if this is as good as I will ever be? (Note: I know that these thoughts are exaggerated and a bit catastrophize-y, but they are also an emotional “truth”, and I do not deny myself feeling any feeling, even if I know in my head that it’s kind of fucking stupid.) I don’t have an answer, just noting this and the process of it. I deeply loved being in Sweeney Todd. We’ll see. I’m following my body’s lead here, and I will see where I’d like to go.

Today I am thinking a lot about mental health stigma and places that are under-resourced. Where I am from, it is still taboo to see a therapist. My mother once said to me, “therapists are for crazy people.” (This came after I shared about my experiences in therapy and encouraged her to seek a similar path, LOLLLLLL lord mercy.) I think about my brother, who has suffered multiple child losses and a multitude of other traumas that he simply tries to shut out until he can’t anymore. I think about how my bottling and ignoring and placating of my own emotions through my childhood and my 20s caused me to become chronically ill. I ruminate. What is there to be done about these things? A part of me feels angry with society and the status quo, and another part of me knows and believes in Everything In Its Right Timing. Things happen when they are meant to happen. Things happen when they are ready to happen.

I recently watched a video of Patrick Teahan’s take on 5 trauma personalities, and I thought it was wonderful. I feel like I made a lot of progress with EMDR and Somatic Experiencing, but I plateaued for a while. (Normal. Not a bad thing. Often needed.) I am ready to peel another layer back. I’ve been seeing little glimpses of the child I once was come out of me, and I want that to happen more. Here’s the video if you’d like to check it out:

I also recently started to take low dose tirzepatide, 1.5mg, and compounded (so I mix it at home). This is a GLP-1, often used in the context of weight loss and/or diabetes, but newer research is showing that it helps with a whole host of other things, including inflammation (which is why I started taking it). Things I have noticed so far:

• more stretches of mental clarity and mental precision

• I am less quick to overstimulate

• My mental landscape is more positive overall

• My body hurts less

• I have lost 15 pounds and am currently in a 1X/XL, which hasn’t happened in literally years

I dunno, it’s an experiment. I am finding it positively impactful so far. (Dr. Tyna has a video series on this, you can start here if you are interested in knowing more.)

I hope August 14th is treating you well - please do write back to share your updates with me if you feel so inclined. :) I love to hear from y’all.

xx,

Cat Fitz

I had read that the director, Christopher Teipner (CT) was going to be doing Sweeney Todd this summer, and I remember thinking, “That’s one I would love to audition for.” I didn’t think it was going to be possible, being so soon after I had Pepper. I also wasn’t sure I still had it in me, you know? It’d been such a long time. What if I sucked now?

But, the auditions came around, and I signed up. CT is my favorite director to work with, and I love Sondheim shows. It was essentially a no-brainer. I figured I would just audition and see what happened.

The response to this show was enormous. Over 200 people auditioned for a show with 25ish roles. I took Freddy along to the auditon so he could get a taste for what it looks like to audition. (“Wow, mama! That’s how you sing?!”)

I am glad I waited to rejoin the theatre world - this show, this cast… I feel so lucky to be a part of it all. Every single person in this production is beyond talented, and more than that - everyone is good to each other. Anyone who has done this kind of work knows how rare it is that everyone gets along and everyone is kind. I know I am really going to miss this one once it’s over. My eyes are welling up a little just thinking about it. We may be at a community theatre, but this is not a community theatre cast.

If you haven’t grabbed your ticket, it’s too late because we’ve sold out for our final weekend. I can’t wait to do it three more times. Here are some (um absolutely fucking gorgeous) photos from the production by (the incomparable and incredibly gifted) Kara Salava.

Can’t wait to see what direction this (*gestures broadly at my life*) goes next.

xx,

cat fitz

I have been without a true Kitchen for a long time. My health has been in decline for the better part of a decade, both physical and mental. However.

We just moved from the suburbs to the city, and I went from doing nothing with music or theatre to BAM! Rehearsals every weeknight for Sweeney Todd. These are both Kitchens for me. Also, here’s a cast recording of the opening number:

I can say now that it’s true - being in the correct environment does matter a fuckton more after your Saturn Return. It’s like I’m waking up from a long slumber, my eyes still a little foggy from the sleep. Each day I have just a little more strength; a little more to give to life in general. That’s saying something, since I have spent a lot of time nearly bed-bound from exhaustion and body weirdness, none of which any doctor was able to make significant headway on diagnosing. I have shed 12 pounds¹ since we got to this house, which was June 10th. My body aches now too, but in a different way: the ache of muscle being built.

I can literally see the city from my bedroom window. I can literally walk to Target. There is a park with a splash pad two blocks away. An elementary school (that we may or may not go to) three blocks away! Two excellent restaurants basically at my doorstep, one of them being an Italian hole-in-the-wall Deli (I’m Italian, BTW, if you didn’t know now you do). Like, hello??????????? Everything that felt so far away before is literally at my fingertips. I took the kiddos to a cool ass coffee shop/soccer space (!!!??!?!?!!) the other day, which has regular open play hours for kiddos. And while I understand that to some, the difference between a 20 minute drive and a 5 minute drive/walkable distances is negligible and doesn’t make that big of a diff, but for me, it is literally life-changing. The whole vibe is so different, and so much more me. (not to mention my sneaky driving anxiety that rears its head with almost no discernible rhyme nor reason.)

The new spot seems to work well for everyone. Corey and Maggie are both Mountains. Our bedroom (and Corey’s music space) are on the 3rd floor, and Maggie’s sleeping on the 2nd floor. Literal higher ground. Freddy and Pepper are Markets. Plenty of opportunity for them to feel really fulfilled in that way. (Not that it matters as much for the pre-Saturn return kiddos, but if I know their Environments, why not support them in that now?)

Something I know now is that while it was very difficult, it was also correct for me to be in the wrong environment for a time. My body chose that. Each move I made, I made with my emotional authority, so I know it was right. What does that mean, then? For me as a 3rd line being, I see the last 6 (?! dear sweet christ, what a long school session, hey?) years as an arc where I experienced and learned things that I need(& needed) to know in the next phase of my life. Things that I could not have learned any other way but to walk through it.

The piece of it I was missing was actually living. There was SO much time spent on healing and excavating (and transmuting) my own painful experiences that I didn’t realize how deeply I was slipping into a freeze state. I was not living. It became another way to dissociate. It started small. I stopped being social with my friends. Then I took a break from auditioning, which eventually turned into not doing music at all. (If you have known me a long time, then that likely seems almost impossible, but it’s true. I wasn’t even singing at home to myself.) I stopped sharing about trauma healing, and about neurodivergent unmasking. I stopped talking about astrology and pulled way back on talking about Human Design. I started to think it was embarrassing, useless, “everyone knows this,” and other self-sabotaging thoughts. I set my work down, thinking it not impactful anymore. I sank further and further into freeze. I used my being non-sacral as an excuse to always be resting, and there is something to be said about rest crossing the line from rejuvenation to being harmful. It feels like everywhere you look, rest is being uplifted as a cure to burnout that is applicable to all. Rest is deeply important, but so too is doing the right activities and burning your energy in the way that you specifically are meant to. For me, rest became a siren call that I could not ignore, all the while not noticing that my day-to-day capacity weakened every time I said “no” to life when I was meant to be saying “yes.”

And now I’m here, head bursting above the surface for a life-saving breath of air I’ve long been starved of. I am waking up, and in this new season, I am doing my best to keep a watchful eye on old patterns. (It’s funny because once my energy picks up, I expect it to just keep going. Up and up and up and more and more in a never-ending frenzy of capacity. So unrealistic. Nothing in nature exists this way.)

When grief arises, I allow it to flow through me. (Hard cut to me doing theater again and going from THIS IS THE BEST WHY DID I EVER QUIT to weeping in my kitchen because I have so many complicated emotions surrounding it.)

I have noticed a stir in my online community and know that I am not alone in this moment of re-awakening. I see it in many of you, too. I am happy to share this space with you.

all my love,

cat fitz

¹ - I want to be careful to not be misunderstood here. I am not trying to say that being fat is inherently a reflection of health, because a person can be healthy at all sizes. For me, I know that a lot of my weight retention is happening/has been happening as a protective mechanism - my body insulating me to protect me from circumstances that have been harming me.

It’s that time again! One of my primary ways of receiving messages is through music. I’d love to make an intuitive playlist for you! This includes a mini tarot reading in the playlist description. :) $45, payable by Venmo or Paypal. Reply to this email to book 🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻

COME SEE ME IN SWEENEY TODD!

Listen, this is quite possibly the best show I’ve ever been in, and that’s saying something. The cast is phenomenal. The artistic team is phenomenal. You are not gonna wanna miss this one. We open this week!! You can grab tickets here.

A few weeks ago, I had a minor allergic reaction to pineapple for the first time. I love pineapple and find this development to be wildly annoying. The roof of my mouth got all…weird, and my eyes began to itch. I say to you, did I ask? No.

Today, while scrolling through god’s internet, I was advertised to about the Twin Cities Cat Show coming up next weekend. I ‘bout near burst into tears because I love cats, LOL. THIS. IS. PREGNANCY₁. In the life of my dreams, one of the components is being able to give my cats the best life of all time, which includes feeding them raw food, building them an elaborate outdoor catio, and installing a bunch of wall perches and climbing areas.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the concept of alignment, and how it’s often paired with energy. How people may say that if you’re doing something you want to be doing, you will have energy to do that thing. (Especially if you are a Generator in Human Design - no doubt someone has said this to you.) Well, what happens when you no longer have energy for something you want to be doing? Some might say that perhaps you don’t actually want to do it - that your mind just thinks it does. That may be true in some cases.₂ But I don’t think we speak often enough about burnout, and how even the works dearest to your heart become difficult (and sometimes near impossible) to complete while you’re in it. The body takes over and takes precedence. Rest is needed - everything else be damned. (Much to my great irritation.) Especially as a Manifestor in Human Design - everyone talks about how we are here to create and birth new things and burst into a happy, shiny ball of light when we get the urge to Make and Do. Pft. I sense my capacity building and I look forward greatly to the time it feels like that to me once again, but I will be honest and share that creating hasn’t felt that way for me since college. It has been much more like the unpredictable ebb and flow of water, and I have been at the mercy of it.

I have also had my mind turned toward the consideration of Hustle Culture™. It’s not all bad, yanno. I think there’s a line where it’s correct for me to be encouraged about my own capacity. Because I do have capacity somewhere in there and a lot of the time with my chronic illness, I can’t see it. And on really hard days, maybe I start to believe that it’s not there anymore. So sometimes, that kind of motivational content does serve me in a correct way. The line gets crossed the second my productivity or passion for doing things becomes about my worth as a person as a parent as a partner as a “functioning” member of society. That’s when it becomes problematic for me because that’s the moment it sneaks into the territory of untruths and capitalism. Humans were never meant to produce in every season of life.

🎶 Songs I’ve got on repeat right now 🎶

Better from Kimberly Akimbo the musical₃

ITALODISCO by The Kolors

LOV3 (limited edition) by Raine Stern & DAMAG3

Take Me to Church by Hozier₄

Just What I Needed by The Cars

I’ve been in the studio again (YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE), and it tickles me how much trial and error energy I bring to my practice. God forbid I ever wash my hands before beginning to draw on white paper, am I right? Ha. Not a chance. That kind of shit doesn’t even cross my mind until I see little smudges from my fingertips. I can hardly manage to draw a straight line even when I’m using a ruler. Oh, well. It’s all part of my charm.

Here’s a few works in progress:

I’ve been considering a few things:

• doing some Human Design sessions out of the studio. I have moved away from online sessions entirely and am doing them only in person. I do beginner sessions, topic-specific coaching sessions, partner or parent-child sessions, etc. If there’s something you’d like that you don’t see listed, I’m open to that collaboration.

• hosting a grief session, very casual, tea and cocoa available, maybe we would even Do An Art together if we wanted, or perhaps we’d just talk and be together. I’m still fleshing this idea out, but I want this to be available for expression of all types of grief, whether that’s the loss of a loved one or the loss of a life dream.

• I might livestream my home birth this time around. A few people have expressed interest in observing the Manifestor birth process, and tbh I almost streamed the other two anyway. If this sounds interesting to you, do let me know so I can guage interest.

I hope you are doing well. Reply to this with an update of your own, if you feel so inclined.

Love you, mean it.

Cat Fitz

Footnotes

1 - said in the same spirit of “THIS. IS. SPARTAAAAAA.”

2 - Sometimes, we have told ourselves over and over, “this is who I am” in regards to a particular hobby, career, or life path, and when the time comes for it to shift and become untrue for us, we don’t want to let it go. I’m reminded of the quote “Everything I've ever let go of has claw marks on it.” from David Foster Wallace.

3 - this is absolutely a song I would perform. Hands down. Expect it in the future.

4 - Perhaps in an effort to continue avoiding listening to Hozier’s new album. No real reason why. I sometimes will put off watching a series/movie or listening to an album because I know it’s likely to consume me.