Looking Back to Walk Ahead
I suppose the only times I actually write anything on this blog are: birthday milestones, mental breaks, annual anniversaries, and end-of-year musings…well, guess where we’re at, and folks…
What. A. Fucking. Year.
Election results aside, this year, like myself, contained multitudes: new friends were made, old friends were lost, relationships came to an end, and we held space for the masterpiece that was Wicked. “A lot” doesn’t quite cover the range this year had. When I look back to where I was at this point in 2023, I try to look back with fondness and sympathy because he had no idea what was coming—the heartbreak, the love, or the lessons.
Evolution
A lot changed this year — some for the good, some for the better, and some for the weird. And while the world felt like it was going to end at several junctions, it never did (though it did get close). Those moments, though, were visceral and excruciating. They forced me to shift everything I knew and every perspective I had to get a sense of stability. It felt like I was setting a bone and waiting for it to heal.
They say that the location at which a bone breaks becomes the strongest part once it’s healed — at least that’s what one opening monologue from Grey’s Anatomy once taught me — and while the days, weeks, and months just after the break were agonizing, I feel like I’m able to stand up stronger and depend on myself more.
Control
I read (listened) to an article a week ago about Mel Robbin’s “Let Them” theory, a perspective which dictates that you will experience less stress in your life by letting others do what they may; by letting them be; by letting go of control. This concept is anathema to me — what do you mean let go of control? What do you mean “don’t be affected by those around you and just live your life to your own parameters”?
Sounds like some bullshit to me — but it’s not.
I always thought that with enough control, I can will things and mold my world to my exact wants. But as I felt my life and relationships begin to shift, the more I interfered the faster they crumbled. There wasn’t anything I could do to “fix” it or hold it all together. As I looked up at what was left, the dust of it all settling at my feet, I realized that nothing was gone or destroyed or missing. It just evolved. It shed off what it didn’t need, what was holding it back. I was able to step back and see that by letting “it” (fill in the blank, that’s what metaphors are for) be, “it” could transform into something new and, in some ways, better.
I have no goals for 2025 — I never do for the new year — because I really don’t know what is coming my way. The dark times may be upon us or it could be the year that everything takes a turn for the better; it could be the year where nothing remarkable happens whatsoever.
I have no way to predict what’s to come, and even if I did, I wouldn’t dare peek. I can only take the lessons learned from years’ past and be open to new ones that come up and hope that I can pass some along the way. Offering and receiving goodwill is a precious commodity after all; increasingly so as we step foot into yet another uncharted path.
