This is a letter to my creativity coach Sara
Before our call I always give her a headsup.
.

Dear Sara,

I hope, and intend this to be the shortest email in our 5+ years of working together.
Because although from my great suffering, has indeed come great art;
Ending what feels like the, consciously lived, best year of my life, no longer needs words, nor art.
It just is.

I am still intensely grateful for choosing your coaching in 2018. Not just because you have been my companion, on this otherwise terribly lonely road, but because you have been an example of the type of professional I hope to be for others.
This is because of many things, but I think the crucial element here, for me, is that you offer both a service (coaching) as well as that you are an artist.
This is intrinsically different to “just” being an entrepreneur.
It comes with different pitfalls.

Regular business coaching, would never have been able to save me in these darkest of years. But you did.
Or, if you’re more comfortable with that, our work did.

I am working on two projects now, and both feel close to vanity projects, compared to the past few years.
That I even have the clarity of mind to think:
“You know what would be fun? – “
Indicates we’re talking pure luxury here.

The first project is publishing the first two years of my Lauren 1998 project. So these cover the fictionalized diaries of summer 1994 (2019) to fall (2021). I had started this spring 2022, and the manuscript was like 90% done. Just some spacing issues in the second part of the book, as far as I can tell.

I found the manuscript and am working on it, keeping a publishing journal on my oldest website, for which I have not had a purpose since in December 2018, when I started this new one (laurenharteveld.com)

This summer I had to invest in getting it updated, because the old software didn’t allow for the update of the host. Having invested a few hundred euros motivated me to find purpose for it again.
And also because I have to work with real WordPress Gutenberg software there, and don’t have the escapes I have on all my other websites which are hosted by wordpress.com.
Knowing that when wordpress.com stops facilitating the mastodons who still want to use classical editor, at least I will be having some years of experience under my belt using their Gutenberg editor.
Even when I obviously do a dirty hack job posting on that website, but still!
Valuable experience.
A girl should be prepared for the worst, which for me is wordpress.com taking their pre-installed classical editor features down.

So publishing my first retro-diary is the first project I am actively working on. And once this book is ready, I will keep this train rolling, publishing all the unpublished material, and doing it in tandem with keeping a publisher journal. 

As sort of a million dollar ps, that should probably have an entire new blogpost on its own;
I have come to the conclusion that I should start seeing my body of work, as my greatest work, just like Anais Nin’s diaries, the record of her life, were her biggest contribution.
Her erotica got wings because of that, but it was the diaries, that were both the heart as well as the glue keeping it together. 

In the upcoming years I will be publishing all my work, with dates included in a “this post was written on” footer.
And then I will explore options of sharing my work with a publisher or foundation, who will commercially exploit it and curate it.
I want to be the 21st century Anais Nin, or already know I am. But what I need is an international publisher who sees the value of the diaries and dated articles as a whole;
Not as singular books.

Okay, is blogpost is getting really long after all!
😉 

And the second project is one I still have no idea how to do it, it is like it is there on the edge of my consciousness, drifting in and out;
But I am bringing myself, or “us” because I am also bringing my 20th century alterego Lauren 1998 there as well, to December 1989.
I’m putting us on a different timeline;
The month a 17 year old Lauren met Bear, the boy who would become her lover in January 1990.

In December 1989, Lauren was in her final year of highschool, gearing up for her exams in May.
And losing her virginity, in which she probably put even more thought 😉

But what made Lauren’s 1989, going 1990, lifestyle so appealing to both Lauren 1998 and me, in 2023, is that she had a very healthy daily rhythm.
Homecooked meals, no junkfood whatsoever, walking, cycling and fresh air, ingrained in daily activities. 
No going to the movies at night, nothing spectacularly dysregulating on weekends, and so on.
As a 17 year old I/ she, had the aspirational lifestyle of any adult.

Now of course this was largely due to the fact that my mother took care of me, so as an adult I have tons of tasks 17 year old me didn’t have.
But still;
I know it was in how she/I was feeling, more than what I did.

So this means that after the second timeline, where I live my life as if it is 25 year ago, which I have been doing since 2019 (1994);
I have now added a third timeline.

Of a 17 year old Lauren on the cusp of the 90s, and taking matters into her own hands, with regard to her sexuality.
She will be with Bear to lose her virginity, and they will like each other so much that they will keep seeing each other.
He will have other women too, but she will only have him simply because she is most in love with him, and the two men she falls for during their time, are in no position to answer it.
Or at least they choose not to.

In December 1998 (!) Lauren will reflect on the year, marking January as the last time they had sex and May as the last time they saw each other.
She wonders if she has lost him forever, or at least for a few years.
In December she did not count the new year, she didn’t say “I have been with Bear for 9 years.”
January rounds off to the previous anniversary.
Eight years.

Unsure what to do, or how to proceed, she decides to live the first 4 years of their relationship again;
From December 1989 to summer 1994, when she started her diary.

Because she may not have been able to save her relationship with him, but she will try to save time itself.

The time they had, together.