Oh shit, “2022 in Retrospect” was my most recent post and here I am writing my 2023 one. Oops. There should be more this year (more on this later).
Every year, I try to sum up what happened in my life. A lot happened this year in the wider world, but this post is just about my experience of 2023 while it’s still fresh.
I held the line in 2023. In writing, one often finds themselves having to write scenes in which a lot needs to get done, but it doesn’t feel at the time like forward progress is being made in the main story. I’ve heard them called bridge scenes, but I can’t seem to find any reference to that terminology, so who knows? I’m sure they have a name (let me know if you know what they’re actually called). I’ve always heard that these scenes are best avoided but sometimes they are going to happen, so try to spice them up as best you can. 2023 was a sort of bridge year. Stuff happened, but mostly it was a year of unraveling the trauma and working on fixing the damage from 2022, with the rare bit of spice thrown in, mostly for the sake of making it palatable. I completed very few goals, but I survived and I learned a lot. So, I’ll take it.
I’ve started writing again. Over the last few years, I’ve written very little because I got busy and spent my creative energies elsewhere, like learning to paint my nails and do makeup (if you’ve never taught yourself something like that, I suspect you would not believe how long it can take), or other weird projects, like learning to make hot sauce. What small amount of writing I was doing came to a full stop while struggling with the death of my girlfriend in July of 2022. As is probably the case with most people, decent writing is only possible for me if I can let myself be vulnerable. Unfortunately, for a long time, taking my armor off at all left me sobbing in a pile on the ground. So, I mostly left it on. I wore my armor almost all the time and any writing I tried to do was garbage (I was able to get through a lot of editing older stuff, though, which is nice, I guess). I found more and more this year that I was finally getting better at recognizing when it was appropriate to take the armor off, and in the last few months I’ve been writing again. Not a lot, and it’s not particularly good, but that’s not the point; I’m doing it at all, which is proof that I can, and I’ve missed it.
I started a new relationship. I don’t get to see her a lot, but she’s amazing and I cherish the rare time I get to spend with her.
I still love my job and my coworkers are an impressive group of people. I try not to gape, but I’m in awe of every single one of them at all times, even after 3 years.
2023 was also a big year for self discovery.
It was the first full year of living alone and the jury is still out on whether or not I like it. The freedom and autonomy found in alone time is amazing, but the loneliness aches, and let’s be real: my imagination is far too active to be a pretty girl living alone and not come up with multiple ways in which I could be brutally murdered whenever there are noises outside my window in the middle of the night. I sometimes go weeks at a time without touching another human being and that wears on me. But a dinner for one can be eaten at any time, a tread of thought can be pursued uninterrupted in an empty room, my home is the temperature I choose it to be, the music playing in my apartment is always the music of my choice, and if I want to spend 3 hours drawing on a fake ship tattoo for my Renaissance Faire pirate costume, nobody has to be the wiser if said tattoo ended up somewhere that nobody even saw it and the whole thing was kind of a waste of time (unless I… you know… mention it in a blog post). Whether I like it or not, it’s where I am, I think these are lessons worth learning.
I’ve also learned the beauty of accepting people and things for who and what they are and am getting better at actually putting those findings into practice.
For example, there’s this guy that I’ve had a crush on (in case you’ve forgotten, it’s worth mentioning that I’m poly. So, my girlfriend knows all about this). For reasons I’m not going to get into, pursuing a relationship with him is a bad idea and he’s neither interested nor available anyway. There was a scene in the book One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston where a character is asked if having unrequited feelings for someone makes them lonely and they say, “Sometimes. But, you know, that feeling? When you wake up in the morning and you have somebody to think about? Somewhere for hope to go? It’s good. Even when it’s bad, it’s good.” I think about that line a lot. I don’t think this is exactly what the author meant, given the wider context of the book (which is wonderful, by the way), but it started a line of thought for me that made me realize that it’s okay to just have a crush, because the crush itself serves a purpose as long as one can accept it for that; I’m not in love with this guy, I just needed “somewhere for hope to go.” This all seems very obvious in hindsight, but for me getting there was hard-earned.
Another example is my dog. It has become clear that I cannot take care of the dog on my own, so I am looking for a new home for him (if you’re interested, here’s a page all about it: https://imasillypirate.w3spaces.com/index.html . If the page is still up, I’m still looking). I wish I was the sort of person who can have a dog and I have long thought that I should be able to do anything I put my mind to, but the fact is that the needs of this particular dog and my needs at this particular time in my life are mutually exclusive. I’m doing everything I can to take care of him and not taking care of myself in the process. Meanwhile, it isn’t enough and he’s depressed. This leads to a feedback loop where I get upset about my all not being enough and suddenly I’m circling the drain, able to do even less. I finally realized that it’s not because I’m broken or he’s broken, it’s just that this situation is not ideal for either of us and continuing to struggle along as I am isn’t fair to him or me. Accepting the situation for what it is has allowed me to seek a solution which can allow both of us to thrive. It has been really hard, but it’s for the best and is worth doing right.
I’m not going to bore you with an entire year’s worth of instances where I realized what’s essentially the same thing, but one more broad example is important, I think. Learning to accept myself for both my limitations and my strengths has allowed me to make progress towards liking myself. It’s hard to be assertive and ask for what you need if you neither understand your needs nor think you are worthy of the things you’re asking for. So, a cool side effect of accepting things and people for what they are is me being more vocal about my needs, which is neat. My therapist refuses to out and tell me that she’s proud of me, but I can tell.😂
So, in the coming year, I hope to continue the work I’ve been doing on my mental health and to learn more about myself. I’m hoping to write more and start querying again to get my work back out there (yes, I even want to post some stories and dumb comics on here again). I’ll enjoy the friendships 2023 and the years before brought me, and I’ll try to make more. I’ll cherish the family that I am lucky to have. I’ll feel my feelings and be present in my life and I will do my best to accept people and things for who and what they are and be able to see the beauty even in the things that hurt. Above all else, though, I’ll do my best to not get murdered in the middle of the night by whatever creature it is that keeps scratching at my windows. Hell, maybe I’ll even move.
Happy 2024, everyone! 🤘😁🤘
Imasillypirate 