My 2024
I started this year in a place that is unfamiliar to me now. I was the most lost I’ve ever been, swimming in an old habit that I had been trying to get out of for a long time, but could never seem to break. I was stuck in a relationship that was hurting me deeply. It had been for six years. It sucked the life out of me. It kept me from growing. At the time though, I didn’t know it. I thought it was romantic. I thought it was meant to be. I thought it was my destiny. In reality, it was poisoning my mind and killing my soul, but I was in so much denial, I couldn’t accept it for the torture it really was.
When it fell apart, my world had nothing left to revolve around. That relationship was everything I’ve ever known, and when it finally came to an ugly end, I didn’t know what to live for after that. I was left to pick up the pieces of myself that I let down. It was painful, but essential. I needed to be stripped to the bone in order to reconnect with my own heart. I felt so young again. I felt like I suddenly had the mannerisms and behaviors of my seventeen-year-old self, even though I was twenty three. It made me feel guilty, ashamed, embarrassed, and pathetic. I felt the smallest I’ve ever felt in my life, but slowly, somehow, I rose. I grieved, and grieved, and grieved, until I couldn’t grieve any deeper. I sucked all of the poison out of my own wound, and it felt like I had been pumped with new, clean, fresh, untouched blood. Although I felt reborn, I tried my best to revel in my past instead of trying so hard to erase the mistakes I had made. I intertwined them with parts of myself undiscovered to create bonds that made me a version of myself I always thought was unfathomable. I finally left an abusive relationship that was destroying me, and it was revolutionary.
From then on, I took off like a rocket. Spring died quickly, and I gladly moved on, wanting to forget about it all. Summer became a melting pot of new and old. My support system never left my side, but it also grew in numbers, and we partied hard. I drowned myself in the love of my family and friends to help heal the last bits of me that I couldn’t fix on my own, and when I broke the surface, ready to hold my own weight again, it was breathtaking. I explored beyond my comfort zone. I tried new things. I stood a little taller. I made new friends, and lost touch with old ones. I kept being strong, and when I needed to, I broke down in intimate moments with just myself, held safe within the walls of my bedroom. I followed that routine day by day until the crying sessions gradually occurred less and less, and I was happy again. For the first time in the past six years, I didn’t want to go back to drinking poison. I had finally made it out.
In a whirlwind, I found myself falling in love with one of my closest friends who even helped me through my first breakup of the year. It was a connection that meant a lot to me because I never thought I could feel so deeply for someone new after the loss of my other relationship. It was so unexpected and swift, that I didn’t even recognize that I was losing myself again, but to a different kind of venom. After what felt like dying and coming back to life, I didn’t think anything could hurt me that bad again, but as it turns out, there are some people who are secretly harboring knives to place in my back. In my traumatized state, I thought, “What’s one more dagger compared to the thousands of swords I’ve endured, and didn’t let kill me?” That’s when I learned that even though I’ve been through worse, it doesn’t make the paper cuts any less painful or excusable, and so instead of letting this new poison kill me again, I spat it out. I was proud of myself because the old me would’ve let it consume me. The old me would’ve sacrificed myself to give in to the beautiful pain of a lethal love.
In the cruel cold of November, I realized that who I was in January was unrecognizable. It felt like I had kept my head down for months just to look up all of a sudden and find myself in a completely altered environment. I didn’t realize how much I had grown until I was hurt again. I didn’t realize how much stronger I had become until I handled a painful situation with great ease. I took everything I learned from earlier in the year and shaped it into tools meant only to assist me. To build me. I sat with my new mistakes, but I wasn’t terrified of them this time. They didn’t control me. I transformed.
The experiences I had this year have been haunting me, but I chose to change myself for the better. Although this year was one of the saddest ones of my life, it was where I grew from a backyard garden into a field of wildflowers. What’s even greater is that I am still facing challenges. I am still carrying a lot of weight that feels too heavy sometimes. But I’ve learned how to take breaks and how to shift that weight into positions where I can move with grace. This calendar year brought me wisdom, light, darkness, and the death of old habits. I moved into my first studio apartment. I turned twenty four. I watched my younger sister graduate college. I spent July with 100 members of my beloved family at a joyful reunion full of food, culture, laughter, and aloha. I’ve started to feel like the city of Seattle could be my home. I’ve welcomed fear. I’ve rejected disrespect. I’ve altered my perception of myself and what I deserve. Most excitedly, I want to move forward to a new phase in my healing process. I want to shed the hatred and anger that I wear like a badge of honor. Those feelings have served their purpose, and now I want to push forth grace and flood myself in safety. I can’t control what other people do to me, but I can decide if I want to swallow the poison they offer. In upcoming change, I’d like to continue to choose a higher power, and lean into faith and the victory of good. This past year has been one of the worst of my life, and it was tough, but it taught me that I am tougher.