Building on Stable Ground
Where do I go from here?
In 2017, I made $4000.
In 2020, I made $25,000 in tips/donations for my Service days and fundraisers and received a $10,000 PPP loan. Those tips/donations likely would have been higher if we hadn’t been living through a pandemic that accelerated an economic crisis due to administrative incompetence.
That’s still not a lot of money - I am by no means rich and still living week to week with not much in the savings account - but it’s stable ground on which to build further.
More stability than I’ve had in my entire life.
In 2020, I was able to buy my house - no mortgage, I own it free and clear, deed is filed away for safekeeping. That’s one of the perks of living in a poor neighborhood and getting the chance to buy a house for the back taxes.
I never would have qualified for a mortgage anyway - my previous income proofs weren’t even enough for the Land Bank to approve me for a $200/month land contract, and my credit is shit. Poverty will do that to you.
I was also able to buy a truck - the first vehicle I’d owned in 13 years - giving me freedom that I didn’t have before. When you have your own transportation, it opens up a wider world of what you can do versus when you’re relying on friends and buses to get places. Truck is down for the moment, but it’ll be back up and running by next weekend - needs new brake lines and a new tire is all.
And finally, after much drama and even annoying legal bullshit, the narcissist who has drained me for a decade is out of my life - the divorce hearing is in March and they have moved out and moved on - but not before they screwed me over for a lot of money in the spring, and then used their mental health status, case manager, the courts, and the police to bully me into letting them move back in when the girlfriend they screwed me over to move in with kicked them out. That’s a whole ass story I’ll tell someday when I’m a wee bit less resentful about it cuz it took another six months to get them out again.
But here I am, finally alone, at peace, in a home I own, with stability to build on.
Which means…
What’s next?
What’s next for my life and for my work?
I still have to make money - bills have to be paid, taxes have to be paid, and while I have plans to grow much of my own food, it’s probably gonna take a few seasons of learning before I’m consistently doing that.
A phrase has been bubbling up for the past few months, and it’s getting more and more insistent. It’s an odd one; paradoxical.
Monastic Lifestyle Blogger
But really, that’s what I am. I post on Facebook mostly, but it’s still a blog of sorts. Documenting my life, my projects, my process, my journey.
That’s really what my business is.
No-nonsense Spiritual Influencer
It’s a weird space to be in.
The Hermit With An Audience.
Phew.
But really, it kind of excites me.
I’ve got SO many projects planned for the Hermitage and Cat Sanctuary that I want to share. As well as my work with the BEND Framework for revitalizing and reinventing your life. All the stuff that saved me over the years, and brought me to a place of flourishing. And of course, political discussions.
And expanding onto platforms other than Facebook.
That means here, in this newsletter on Substack, and also, finally getting my website actually going.
I’ll be sending these emails every Sunday. I’ll play with the format for awhile to see what works, but it’ll be a mix of things, just like me.
<3 <3 <3
Gwynne