Building up vs burning down

I'm learning how NOT to start over.

I know I’m not alone in this, although oftentimes I have felt I was. I made myself believe that I was weird and different than other people because when things didn’t go to plan, didn’t turn out just as I had hoped (spoiler: they never do) I would take up my proverbial matches and burn the whole thing to the ground.

I thought there was something brave and honourable about doing this, having the guts to recognize that I had taken a wrong turn somewhere and allow myself to destroy what I had created so that I could build something new. I even used a quote as a footer to my emails for years to illustrate this point:

Though I felt myself an oddity, marching around with my book of matches ready to alight whatever creation I’d made if it didn’t go to plan, I did kinda relish in it. Who else was going to have the chutzpah to take full responsibility for their perceived errors and stand in the rubble of what they built, seeing what would next be possible?

I have this image of myself right now, me marching around (in rain boots, I don’t know why), piles of rubble smoking in my wake and I go on and on. But I'm not moving forward, I see now I’m in this concentric circle.

Because energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can just be moved from one state of being to another.

It’s only now, in this year of 2025, that I’m really starting to pick up on my pattern with this.

As the quote above says, I’d focus all of my energy on creating new — and there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m actually all about that vibe, yes, keep the desire of what you wish to experience at the forefront of your vision. Yes, be relentless in your pursuit for what sets your soul on fire. Yes. Build new, build new, build new. Yes.

And.

Maybe you don’t actually have to first bash to pieces what you created. Maybe you can…expand it.

I used to pass this farm on the way to and from my girls country homeschool pod. I had passed it many times in my lifetime and noticed over the years how it transformed from a modest farmhouse and rolling hills to a bigger homestead, a pool was put in, new shiny white fencing. Last year I noticed two huge structures being built, a barn-raising was afoot. Wow I thought, what a feat this is. Who are these people who (in the story I’ve created in my mind) are so committed to their multi-generational farm that they have stayed and saw it through. That they have stayed the course with the dream they were building and actually just kept building it over the years.

Building upon it. Building it up and out and different than it once was.

Different but of the same fabric, the same dream.

It struck me and it’s stayed with me because it was then that I realized, I have been throwing away the building material as I’ve been steadfast in my commitment to start over when things got rough.

Thinking that was admirable, what a tough spirit I have! So resilient.

Holy shit, how resilient did I want to be??

And how exhausted did I become.

As I started a new project, felt it didn’t come out just so, veered to a different course, taking down all that once was to start all over again from scratch, I became further and further disconnected with — me.

Now here I am, in the spring of 2025, in the 6th house I’ve lived in (not including months of travel in Costa Rica) in five years, about to turn 43 and feeling further away from knowing what I want than ever.

Because I’m pretty tired. I’m pretty worn out from all this (self-imposed) change. And I’m dispirited as I’ve watched myself blaze down so many of my past dreams to be left standing with ashes.

Now, I know that beautiful things come from the ashes so actually I’m not overly worried. But I’m more cautious, more deliberate as I make my next move. And also just reminding myself - and you if you’re reading this and eyeing the matchbox in your hand, rubble in your wake - that I get to change my story.

I’m a big believer in choosing a new perspective in which to see things, this is a great opportunity for me to do this. I don’t need to end this chapter in woe, feeling sheepish of my destructive past. I can choose, right now, that actually I am building upon a foundation here. Energy cannot be truly destroyed right, so it’s all still here, maybe in a different form.

Now the visual, if I were painting a picture, would change. From the woman marching around, inexplicably in rain boots, trudging from one pile of smoking remnants of a version of herself to another, to…

A woman standing at the top of a hill, she’s been walking a long time. Below her she sees plots where she once stood, she once created. There’s one where she was a silversmith, one where she had a food delivery business. There’s one where she held a gallery opening of her photos taken on Costa Rican beaches. One plot where she opened a luxury holistic retail store. One where she created a healing space to connect others with their wellbeing. Here’s one where she’s a writer, creating a series of novels that could one day be bestsellers.

Each of those plots now lush with flowers, thick with wild growth, tangled masses of blooms. Because each plot, though left behind at one time, retained the seeds of desire in which they were first realized.

Because energy can never be destroyed.

So now this woman stands at the top of her hill overseeing her messy and gorgeous gardens. She’s built this. She can gather those blossoms, she can make beautiful bouquets to give to people. Isn’t that she was always intending? To offer something beautiful to the world? To use her vision and bring something to the table that would help others see the riotous, unstoppable beauty that is always always always there?

Yes.

Here I am, here you are, between us our messy plots of what-once-was and what-will-bes. Each version evolving ever so perfectly as we give each other permission to take all of it along with us. To see it all unfold, to revel in every twist and turn, to rest on our hilltops when we need to and to turn to each other with a tool belt instead of a matchbook, with hearts full of curiosity and wonder, and say “let’s get back to work”.