And I felt all of those things dissipate into my shell of a human.
I found myself spiraling, wondering how someone, me, could be taking so many gut punches in one year.
2024 came in like an unwanted intruder. A storm.
Hell. I don't even believe all of it.
Weird shit. Heavy shit. Heartbreaking shit.
Juxtaposed with the best move, the best love, the best friends.
Last week on my birthday one of my friends asked me what was one lesson I learned this year. I told her I didn’t know how resilient I was. And I also said that if I hadn’t gone through depression in my 30s, the last year would’ve taken me out.
I made it to the other side this year.
More than once.
This year has beat the ever living fuck out of me.
And for what?
All I try to put out into the universe is peace, goodness, love, kindness, more love, hugs, more love, sweetness, and yes, more love.
I didn't deserve this year.
It didn't deserve me.
New Years Eve 2023: my date told me hope is a pipe dream, then we laughed, made love, and three weeks later they were gone. And on my birthday.
Earlier this year the other side of the most difficult move of my life, all in the midst of sadness, grief, depression, and a break up that blindsided and took the wind out of me. All of it that spring was too much. Too much.
Summer I could barely hold my head up. My therapist reminded me that I was out of my routine and I would be fine soon enough when school started. I was.
At the start of the school year, I remembered this story from my 30s:
I’m 24. I awake from a dream while on a bus to another ball game at my school. I wake up and the dream was clear: you’re dying at 36. I woke up, almost 5 years to the week after losing one of my best college friends, thinking: you can do better. Live bigger. Something. Do all the things. Love harder even if I joke that I hate it. I don’t hate much of anything or anyone. Fix myself when I made mistakes. I didn’t know what I was going to do, just that I would make the most of every day even more than I already was. My journey to self awareness and betterment started early. I’ve only always wanted to be the the best at everything and the best person you’ll ever meet or be loved by.
The next year I resigned from my first teaching position and moved to a small town in the Midwest where I would spend the next 19 years.
I’ve only told 2 people in my life that I had that dream. And now you know about it.
Now I’m years past that and in my 40s. My life is a narrative where only I am the author but the literally narrative of flashback tells me that dream was symbolic, metaphoric.
And maybe a little prophetic...
Because when I was 36 I died.
Of course not really, but I slipped into the darkest depression of my entire life to wake up in the middle of 2017 a year later fragile as a newborn. There I was finding my way back to who I was and had lost. I’d died and lost myself, truly. During that year I had wanted to end it all. I didn’t necessarily want to die, but I sure as hell didn’t want to be alive. The only true thing that I believe kept me alive was the hope my doctor gave me that I would be okay. I believed her because I knew her story. I knew she made it out alive, so I decided I would too.
But August 2024?
This summer was another death. A move after 19 years in a place is not for the light hearted.
I came here tired, grieving those 19 years in a place, and very wounded.
I still am.
I might be for a while. I’m not bulletproof but sure wish I was. But I believe this “if the train is meant for me it won’t leave the station and pull away.”
The train waited for me this past May and June and I hopped on, not even believing I was doing what I never thought I could do. The train waited. And like that hope I held desperately to in my mid 30s, I held tight to once again this summer.
My friends tell me “you’ve done an Ironman, you can do anything.” I tell them that Ironman was only 14 hours and change. Real life is hard.
I live each day like this is it. I’m nonstop and love everything and everyone even if I never say anything or joke I hate everything. I’ve beat depression several in my 44 years thanks to my amazing therapist and hormone dr. It’s always a battle I hate, but all this? All these and LOVE, yes I love more than anyone you’ll ever know, are my true superpowers, not finishing any race I’ve ever competed in.
My new school and Arkansas and my best friends there? Wow—thank you for letting me “come to you and drop my bags… And you'll help me unpack them”.
Through the thousands of tears I’ve shed this year, especially this summer, I believe “there’s nothing to be scared of” even though I’ll wake up tomorrow with the anxiety that is interchangeable with the feeling of excitement.
The holy books say we walk THROUGH the valley of the shadow of death, but don’t stay there. The only way out is through. I tattooed it on my right wrist to see it daily.
I full heartedly believe I made it through once again and that this is the beginning of the second half of my life.
In October I arrived on the other side of everything I ever dreamed of obtaining in my career.
It didn't turn out at all as I expected it to. In fact, the end was anticlimactic and without an audience or anyone to care but me and my best friends. But I did the impossible and made it possible: I achieved everything.
Most people can’t say that.
What is it like to go after everything you ever wanted, unabashedly, and win it all?
I've done everything in my life I've dreamed of doing but one thing.
Yeah, sure, I have a bucket list 77 things long.
But that doesn't mean I have to or need to do any of those on it.
Yeah, I know, I want to get married and that's all that's left that I really really want in this life.
But I've had THE best love of my life, even if it is no longer mine.
What is it like on the other side?
I'm not sure.
I'm here.
It seems calm. Still. Scary. Serene. Anxious.
And still beyond my wildest dreams and imaginings.
Do I need more goals?
Do I need to keep being the same?
I don't know.
I am still me, though.
I am still tough AF.
I am still LOVE.
As I pen these words and my tears are overflowing my eyes with gratitude.
One single, solitary tear hits the floor of my new house.
My oldest dog is chewing her toys on my bed.
My youngest is sleeping at my feet.
I love my house, my city, my friends, my new life.
Oh, I do.
Andrea Gibson wrote, "Imagine, when a human dies, the soul misses the body, actually grieves the loss of its hands and all they could hold."
That is the best description of what I feel right now. Recently, my African friend said. "Amy. What kind of human being are you? I just can't imagine how wonderful you can be."
I know I still am.
My soul is living unabashedly like I always do. Loving. Adventurous. Kind.... yet also grieving what I have lived this past year. And thank god it’s over.
And? It is missing only the one thing, at least for right now, that I cannot hold.
Two friends this year, separately, told me that it's as if I have lived 5 lives because of all I have already done in this life.
I agree.
I suppose, if I'm lucky, I have many many more left in me on the other side.
But I'll be happy with just a simple, single, solitary, one full of love and peace.
Cheers to 45.
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