Reflections on a new year.
I hit the pause button on writing the last few weeks. That’s not strictly true. I did release Devil in Exile on December 13 and have completed the latest edit and revisions on Gods and Devils, but new writing and new blogs… well, I just had to take a break.
For me, writing has always been a deeply personal experience–no more so than on this blog–and I just had to get out of my head and be present in the real world for a while. I’d be lying if I said the last few months have been easy ones for me. But, now that my Anxiety Dragon is on a leash and curled up in a tiny corner of my consciousness, I see now that I’d also be lying if I didn’t say the last few months have been transformative and frankly, amazing.
The endings of good things are always hard, even more so when something ending is the last thing you ever expected or desired. However, endings bring opportunities for growth and if you fail to embrace those opportunities, then all that pain and disappointment are really for nothing.
Now that we’re at the end of the year, many of my friends are posting thoughts and reflections on 2021 and most are not fans. To be honest, 2021 kicked my ass, too. Not because it was a continual onslaught of disappointment, but because it lifted me as high as I thought I could go and then plummeted me to hell and back up again like a sadistic rollercoaster ride and I am not a fan of rollercoasters, to begin with.
At least I finally understand how traumatized Icarus must have been from his failed attempt to reach the sun.
My Anxiety Dragon is a big fan of those downward plummets. I can actually see it grow larger and stronger, its jaw dripping with glee as I scream in terror, watching the earth grow nearer. After my last plummet to hell, I had enough. This time, the dickhead took it too far. This time, it looked at me full of fire and fury and said ‘I win.’ And I simply said ‘no.’
When I was going through my divorce and terrified about my financial recovery and rebuilding my life, I had a mantra that I’d whisper to myself in those darker moments: I am a child of the Universe and the Universe takes care of her children. My life was so controlled by outside forces at the time, that all I could do was trust that I was making the right choice and the path would open for me in due time. And it did.
Eventually, those outside forces subsided. All the necessary hoops had been jumped through. And the path opened. Promotions at work came. Friendships came. Stability came. Love came. But what didn’t show up is acceptance. It was hard for me to accept this new reality as mine. It didn’t feel real. It didn’t feel deserved. So I held it at arm’s length.
The events of 2021 slammed me down to the ground again and again until some sense finally got knocked into me and I reached out for help.
You see, I have an almost pathological inability to ask for help. True story: when I moved into my house three years ago, I did it all by myself even though I had family, friends, colleagues, and a boyfriend who all offered to help. If one of my sweet colleagues hadn’t literally texted me and said he had an afternoon free and asked if I was I sure I couldn’t use any help at all, I’m pretty certain I would have tried to move a giant bookcase and 200 pounds of patio furniture on my own just to prove a point.
But this past October, I was so low, so confused, and so heartbroken, I said that magic word: HELP. And help came so fast. My family and my girl squad swarmed on me before I could process that I had actually said the word. And they stayed, pouring love into the emptiness until all I could feel was abundance.
I’ve always felt that people kept me at arm’s length. That there was this wall people put up so they wouldn’t get too close to me. Standing in the middle of that swarm of love and abundance, I finally recognized that the wall was not getting built by them but by me. And I simply tore it down.
2021 was a rough year in many ways. I lost two very dear friends very suddenly and within hours of each other. I went through the stress and anxiety of a major business merger. I lost a relationship that I treasured very deeply. And let’s not forget the ongoing fun of the COVID-19 pandemic (please, get your vaccines and boosters. I will literally come to your house and beg on my knees if that will convince you). But I learned and I grew from every bad experience.
So, I’m not going to call 2021 a bad year. It was a transformative year. I started making music again. I finished two novels that have been languishing on my hard drive for almost three years. I confronted and finally put a leash on that dickhead Anxiety Dragon of mine. And I found my tribe, even have the tattoo to prove it. (Don’t believe me? that picture up top is us.)
Going into 2022, I have to say I’m feeling pretty good. Not because I think restarting our circle around the sun magically resets things. It doesn’t. We wake up on January 1 with the same problems we had when we went to sleep on December 31. But we also wake up with the same blessings.
So here’s what I’m taking into 2022:
Amazing friends who I love and who love me through my bad times and celebrate my successes. A loving and supportive family who owns up to past mistakes and forgives and hugs our way through it. A healthy and thriving son who makes me laugh and brings me joy every day. A tremendous new company culture that makes me excited to log onto my day job and will help me to learn and grow in my career. Another new book is about to be finished and a series accomplished. A new book idea that is inspiring me to work hard on my craft and will challenge me to do my best work yet. And new possibilities are yet to be explored.
Opportunity. Growth. Love. These are the three things I’m taking with me into 2022.
And if you’d told me this is how I’d feel two months ago, I would have told you that you are a fucking liar. But that’s the thing about growth. It happens in the low points and the dark corners. It happens when we’re hurting. It happens when it feels like everything is falling apart and we’re utterly lost. When you’ve been broken open, that’s when something new can grow.
As an avid DIY-home improver and an obsessive neat freak, I can safely say that nothing was ever fixed, improved, re-built, or gloriously re-organized without making a disaster of a mess first. I can also tell you that standing in the middle of that disaster of a mess can feel overwhelming and that I’ve never stood there without thinking ‘what the fuck did I get myself into?’
For years, I’ve put my head down and tackled those messes on my own even if I was really in over my head. And that’s what I’m leaving behind in 2021. I’m going to continue to ask for help when I need it. To reach out to people when I miss them. To open myself up to the experience of being seen and being loved for who I am. My weaknesses and my strengths. My struggles and my successes. The whole me. And I’m not going to build those little walls anymore. Even if it means I might get hurt more often, I know I’ll get loved more too and it’s so worth it.
I am a child of the Universe and the Universe takes care of her children. But she doesn’t do it on her own. She brings the right people into your orbit to teach you those hard lessons that break you to pieces, but she also sends the right people to love you through it and show you how to rebuild.