Its 7.49am. I’ve been sitting in front of this blank page for 10-15 minutes trying to decide whether or not to make a coffee first, whether it should be a pour over or one from my Nespresso. So far, no coffee- just me, Adele, my water bottle and a post with no plan.
I guess I should start by saying Happy New Year! I love new years, new weeks, new months, any arbitrary thing that can be a trigger for change but this morning, I stood in the shower crying because it’s another year I’m walking into without my mum. What shocks me about grief is how relentless it is. It just keeps going and going and going, long past when everyone else has moved on. It’s endless because I mourn what I lost and what I didn’t get to have- that part is…endless. When you lose a daily part of your life from birth, how do you move forward from that?
So this is supposed to be a 2021 recap and I’m not sure where to start. Let me tell you a story- it’s a made up one, so don’t get too excited.
Rumi wanted to run a marathon. She spent weeks gathering information on marathons, then more weeks buying the right gear, then more weeks picking a marathon to run. Armed with all that preparation, she practiced a little bit and then showed up on marathon day with a sick outfit, sicker shoes and hope that she was going to be really great at this. 5 miles in (out of 26), she realised that she couldn’t do it, she wasn’t going to make it, so she quit and walked off. All her family and friends that had gathered to cheer rallied round her with words of encouragement and love. They all went to get a drink and laughed all afternoon. She carried a nagging disappointment about not completing it but ultimately, it was a good day. As soon as sign ups for the next marathon came out, she was one of the first to sign up. She felt certainty running through her veins that she was going to run and complete it. She went through everything again, started, reached 8 miles and stopped. Her support system was smaller than last time, but they rallied. Before the next marathon, a few people reached out to her because of her marathon knowledge which she was happy to share. She was ecstatic when they reached out later to say they had used it and completed their marathons. She looked forward to her next marathon and…didn’t finish. Rumi kept signing up for that marathon and never finishing. After a while, she was sure that she couldn’t finish because her mind was so used to not finishing, one time she even got halfway and still didn’t finish. By now, she did the marathons mostly alone. No-one reached out to her for information on how to run a marathon, they preferred to get their information from people that had completed at least one.
Since 2017, I’ve felt like Rumi. 2021 was the year where I decided to not partake in anything- all the usual things that I was trying and failing at. In 2021, I just…lived. I practiced kindness to myself, I had very few goals and the ones I did have didn’t go great. They didn’t go great according to my pre-determined metric about what it would have meant for it to go great, but because I was practicing kindness to myself, I could see other ways things went great that I may have not been able to see before. It was the first year in lord knows how long, many many many years where I wasn’t constantly riddled with anxiety. I was honest, I was direct, I was vulnerable, I had hard conversations. I took a hard, honest look at myself and then approached my findings with absolute kindness.
I saved this message from my birthday because I feel like it encapsulates the theme in so many of the messages that I received. I tried and it showed and it resonated and it inspired, because damn, trying is hard. There are very few awards for trying. Nobody really cares that you try. But guess what, people did care. Maybe because they are rooting for me, but maybe it also reminds them that life is just made up of trying. Some of those tries will be wins and many will be losses but what’s the alternative? Not participating?
I really set out to do a typical review and lay out the highs of my year - but now I’m not even sure what I’ve written so far- grief and Rumi?
I created and sold 100s of two products that I made. My communities are really small and I live in a country where most people are poor, so even though I didn’t sell out, I am grateful that I tried.
I traveled to 4 countries and each of those trips was amazing but the fact that I was able to do them in that little pandemic travel window made it even more amazing.
I felt really seen for the first time in…ever. I saw an ex-colleague this past week that said they don’t feel like they saw/knew me when we worked together (for 3.5 years) and they feel like they’ve started seeing me properly for the first time (thanks instagram).
I leaned into what I like regardless of whether or not anyone around me likes it or cares.
I got comfortable with vulnerability in a way that I’ve never even able to before, and I think I can dig even deeper into that.
I didn’t write or read a lot. Read 50 something books which is the smallest number of books i’ve read in a year as an adult. Every time I wrote words, they sounded wrong to me. I started to feel like i’ve been lying to myself about being a writer.
Wrote for buzzfeed
Started a Monday musings series that i’ve now kept up for 30 weeks?
I don’t know. 2021 was less about the things I did and more about who I became. I can’t necessarily articulate who that is, but I know that person is so positioned to take advantage of the new year in a way that she hasn’t felt able to in a while.
Happy New Year!
(this post hasn’t been proofread or edited)