Hello

So we’re finally on the edge of 2022, though admittedly I’ve been in the new year for months now. I steamed ahead, not at all willing to wait for the rest of you to catch up. While refusing to live in the moment, I’ve developed an acute irritability that targets anything that feels too present, too now. So, this will be a little hard— pulling up the floorboards, ripping off the wallpaper— ‘Reflection‘. But as always it has to be done. I’ve walked away from it as of late, it’s been easier on me to just move— away and ahead. I think i’m still capable of it though. Rehashing is a huge part of my personality, so I know I can reach in and pull something out of the fog. I’ll do my best anyway, starting with a zoom in on a concept that all things said can orbit. 2021: how did I do?

I would say, without much thought that the answer is: ‘not well’. That would be true if little was considered, little other than how I am feeling right now. Exhaustion says that it’s hard to ask myself the critical questions such as ‘do you remember when… (insert a proud moment)’, given that I can barely turn myself around to look behind me.

I’m bloody tired. I messed up, many times too, and that has somewhat added to the grogginess. I was not perfect in 2021. I was harsh on myself, but evidently not enough. I lagged behind, it feels like I did— with ideas, with projects, with relationships. There I was behind all of those things, panting like a fat dog. Things did get done, I kept promises— but the enactment was strenuous, and excellence in the fulfilment of them (it feels, it seems) was lacking. That was 2021’s issue— poor execution, strange unrealistic processes and journeys from point A to point B. Where was the science behind anything? I ripped through a lot of things like a toddler, because it was hard to get through things but things still needed to be done. And those things did get done— my MA, trying to handle this blog alongside, acceptance after finally breaking through the surface of denial. Those things happened, but not without a pound of flesh from me. Acceptance of difficult things, accepting the fact that I won’t die and I can’t run. Hard, rigid moments in time— like harassment at work for one. Accepting that bad things are really good things in a believable disguise— that nothing bad is ever truly bad for those that love him. And change. Accepting change— entering a new year with many things undone— and the many things all sitting underneath the shadow of change. Things are changing and my life will never be the same again. I’m doing things far out of my league, things far exceeding my capacity, if we were to go by who I was in the year now forever closing. It doesn’t add up, yet i’m doing those big things (that i will mention at some safer future point). I’m doing things I’m afraid of, and I will become somebody else because of them, regardless of the outcome. 2021 has pressed me dry, it’s wrung me out in preparation for big, pending moments, and I (mostly) hated every moment of it.

But I loved 2021 because finally here is the year that has given me some muscle. I am proud that I didn’t die and I didn’t hide, that I endured and saw things through. I wasn’t running the show either, and I survived that— not being in control. And I’m very good at something I’d never even considered to be within my remit— that is writing stories and anything that is not real but could be and therefore is. And this was also the year that I discovered I’m capable of obedience, to the extent of extreme, disfiguring discomfort. And I’m capable of relinquishing my independence, and of radical love too. I can say something I couldn’t say in the last reflective write up (and if I did say it I was lying)— that is, that I’ve accepted myself. I can regard myself in the mirror, and I can look on at me, and say ‘she’s fine’, ‘she may even great’. I can look myself in the eye now too, because God is proud of me for bending without snapping. I’ve got skin in the game.

Cheers to 2021!