This was originally posted elsewhere on 12/28/24
Last week I had my final therapy session for the year. My therapist and I spent the session recapping many of the things I wrestled with throughout the year. We talked about how my therapist has seen me change, the growth I’ve seen in myself, and the things I’m still working on. One of those things is admitting how much what happens in my life impacts me, acknowledging and sharing the hurt. I’ve grown accustomed to laughing it off or comparing it to the struggles others face, struggles I perceive as harder than my own.
I’ve been thinking about everything that has changed for me as the year draws to a close. The last year has been the hardest year of my life. It’s also been one of the most rewarding years of my life. I lost so much of who I thought I was. I’ve had to confront who I want to be and what I want my life to look like. I’ve had my values challenged. I’ve had to better define and understand those values as well as how I put those values into practice. I had to start getting good at understanding my boundaries, communicating them when necessary, and taking action when my boundaries were pushed or trampled over. I’ve had to learn when it’s healthier for me to stop offering my energy to those I interact with. That’s an especially hard lesson when it comes to those I love. It’s been fucking hard work, there’s so much left to learn and explore, and I’m incredibly proud of how far I came this year.
I don’t want it to sound like my year has been all bad. A lot of the work I’ve done has been incredibly valuable and I have a lot to celebrate and be thankful for. I feel like a more genuine version of myself, a version of me I used to be better at being. I’m learning to approach myself with more tenderness, to be more accepting of and gentle with myself and what I need. I’m returning to a place where I can genuinely feel into what I want and need without succumbing to outside pressure telling me what I should want or need. I have a great group of chosen family, friends, and acquaintances around me and I generally have the freedom to more or less live how I want to. I’ve been lucky to be able to spend a lot of time with my baby girl, who’s been my rock through this year. We’ve worked together to face several challenges in our relationship, held each other through really hard parts of our individual lives, and created ways to spend a ton of quality time together basking in each other’s presence and our shared love. There are also many other sources of joy that I’ve been able to bring back into my life now that things are different for me.
All of this change has required a lot of grief processing as I have capacity. Grief is tricky. It doesn’t warn you before it shows up. It’s come to me sitting on the couch, thinking about how different or similar it will be to hold hands with my partner when those hands are old and wrinkled. Other times I’m laughing and surrounded by loved ones, and grief is there too, knowing that it’s a rare and beautiful thing to have so many wonderful people in my life. Sometimes I’m sitting at my desk or on my couch or in my bed and it’s just so quiet in my house. There are no longer cats skittering about or asking for attention or cuddling me or throwing up on stuff or making the cutest little mews or yowling like they’ve gotten lost in their own home or making biscuits and melting into a puddle in my lap. It’s in the old photos I revisit or stumble on, the plans I made for another life, the inside jokes that I no longer share, the shared experiences that will slowly disappear from my memory.
Earlier this year a friend made a comment that lives in my head. The comment was around sometimes seeing people they knew and perceiving how much their lives had shrunk or become smaller. I wonder what they might have learned if they’d asked those people what was going on in their lives. Not “what’s up” or “how are you doing” or the other standard surface level offerings. What if they really asked how those people were doing? What if those people were able to be vulnerable about what was going on in their lives? I wonder what they would have found and how they would have connected with that. Perhaps they’d have found that their friends lives had changed in ways large or small, that grief had visited them, that they needed a different life while they worked through that.
Some of the things I lost this year have already made their way back. Others are gone for good. I’m working to reclaim some of them, some I’m glad to part with, others I’m curious as to whether they serve me or not, and some I’ll miss as long as I live. And all of that is so completely and utterly normal and human. Nearly every time I’ve opened up about it, I’ve received responses of support, commiseration, and connection. I’m convinced that grief is hard because we try to go through it alone rather than sharing it. So I’m going to do the thing that I often forget I should be doing. I’m going to share some of what I’ve lost, in hopes that it connects with some of you who read this.
My self-concept, security in various forms, sight of what I wanted and needed, a lover, a friend, someone I called a friend, a best friend, putting others before myself as a matter of habit, an 18 year relationship and a marriage, much of the history that goes along with that, a sense of awe, my cats, taking responsibility where I shouldn’t, two businesses I helped build, two jobs, my favorite car and the joy of driving well, my ability to be shamelessly me, art, a stand mixer that I really liked, my hobbies, the persistent feeling that I’m not good enough, more time than I could have imagined, freedom and agency, the entirety of my emergency fund, so much sleep, access to emotion, my sense of belonging in a community I helped build, deep belly laughs and the ease with which they came, finding joy in the small simple things, compassion and empathy, giving others the chance to give me what I need, the courage to be vulnerable and let others know when they hurt me, some of my fear around asking for accountability, crying freely, some of my conditioning to be nice instead of kind, the idea that I can sustainably give more than I receive, apologizing for things that aren’t my fault, extending myself the grace I offer to others, some of the shame I carry.
It might sound a little odd after reading the list, but I’m more content than I’ve been in a long time. All of this loss has taught me how resilient I am and how much I can learn about myself by doing hard things. I’m not thriving, but I will be someday. And I know I can survive and be content if I’m not. This year has brought me closer to community and, when I’m able to engage with it meaningfully, some sense of belonging and connection. I still struggle with those, belonging and connection, and it’s going to take a while to figure those out. I reconnected with some friends, pulled a few closer into my orbit, allowed others to orbit further out, and had some leave my orbit entirely for the time being. I have so many amazing people in my life and I’m grateful for each and every one of them, including those orbiting further out and those that are visiting other systems currently. This year would have been so much harder without them.
I don’t know how to end this. It was a terrible year and a great year. I lost so much more than I could have expected and gained even more. Most of all, I’m just grateful that you’re here. If you’re reading this, it means you survived a hell of a year too. I’m glad you did. I hope you’ve got a community of people around you to connect with when you need it and I hope you’re able to offer connection when they need it. The next four years are going to be brutal for a lot of people and we’re all going to need communities of support to survive it. If you’re trying to build that community, maybe you can start by selecting a few people you feel comfortable talking to and sharing everything you lost this year.