2016 was an incredibly challenging and heartbreaking year for our global community. Yet at midnight on New Year's Eve, I stood amongst friends with Prosecco glasses raised to toast the new year and reflect on the old. The general consensus among us was that for each of us, personally, 2016 was actually one of our best years yet. In fact, 2016 was arguably the best year of my life.
I left full-time employment in February and began a journey of healing myself physically and mentally. I was fragmented, worn down, worn out and imbalanced. I spent the first couple of months doing absolutely nothing but passively watching tv, sleeping and eating. I was very worried about that becoming my new normal and never doing anything meaningful with my life ever again! But my husband, who was wiser than me in those early days of my rest and recovery, encouraged me to savor it and soak up the lazy days as much as possible. He knew that once I became fully saturated (and bored) with rest and relaxation that my drives and desires would start to return and I'd want to spend my days meaningfully again. He was right.
I ended unhealthy relationships and began new friendships this year. I have friends who are vibrantly creative, kind-hearted, and immensely interesting. I'm so grateful for these relationships and I treasure them. Y'all nurture and inspire me. ❤️
I worked my way through Artist's Way, which radically changed my life. (If you haven't read it, you should). I became reacquainted with my real self that I'd buried as I grew into adolescence and adulthood. I started making time to nurture myself, to honor my interests and desires without judgement or censorship, and to let my heart have more voting power instead of being ruled by my brain. It was thanks to working through Artist's Way that I had my most powerful experience of all…
When I think back into my longest, oldest memories I can't remember a time without fear and anxiety. I was a colicky baby and a nervous and anxious child. I don't remember when I first started feeling deep down into my core that life wasn't worth it, but definitely by the start of junior high. For all my vibrancy and playfulness and expressiveness, I secretly believed, way deep down, that life wasn't worth living and I resented being stuck with a life to live.
This isn't the kind of thing that you can casually share with others, so I never spoke of it. People tend to assume that a longing to die would be synonymous with an intent to take one's own life. The two were never related for me. I never had an intent or a plan. I merely had a deep melancholy I couldn't shake and when things felt hard or scary, death felt like the most assured way to stop feeling the fear, the anxiety, the loneliness, the despondency. So I wished for death as the ultimate way out, but never felt like it was an actual choice that could be made. It had to be made for me, by fate, hence the wishing and the desperate longing.
2016 is the year that the longing to die simply vanished. I mean, completely and utterly disappeared. It felt like someone flipped a switch. It wasn’t gradual, it just surged up in me suddenly while I was journaling for Artist’s Way one day, about five weeks into the curriculum. I suddenly had this strong urge to live like I’d never felt before. Like someone had been hiding inside of me and suddenly burst forth to speak loudly how desperately they wanted to live! There wasn’t any internal argument, the longings in favor of dying just weren’t even there anymore. That was in June, and it holds steady. Apparently (and joyfully!) it’s my new normal. I have a drive and a meaning and a purpose for living.
I attribute this joy and vibrance to reconnecting with my inner-child. The real-self in me that I’d covered up with responsibilities and ‘shoulds' and ‘musts’. I was finally able to acknowledge that I’ve spent my life in fear (of messing up, of letting others down, of making wrong choices). I’ve forever been a classic people-pleaser who hates to rock the boat and who avoids confrontation at all costs… I was living the life that others wanted me to live. This year I’ve started facing that I cannot be true to myself and my deepest desires, beliefs, interests, and passions while also being the person that others in my life would have me be. I’m bound to disappoint plenty of people, but I’ve finally found that it’s much easier to live with letting others down than stuffing myself into someone I’m not.
I’m still not working and I don’t have the foggiest idea what my next step is. We’re learning to live more frugally so that we can sustain ourselves in the city we love with less than before, and while that’s a creative challenge, it’s worth it. In the meantime, while I discern my path, I’m living my life well: reading, learning, growing, experimenting and exploring. I’m not used to not having a plan (well-thought out by my over-active brain) but I'm learning to trust the process (and my heart) and to be okay with the not-knowing of it all. I have vague thoughts about where I might like to be in 5 or 10 years, but I am also growing in comfort with letting things unfold naturally, perhaps even manifesting in ways I can’t yet imagine. So although I’m walking in a fog that prevents me from knowing where I’m headed next, I’m also truly the happiest I’ve been since childhood.