reflections and reactions
Jan. 1st, 2003 02:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_siobhanI'm sitting here at work and watching the New Year's wishes rolling in. No party for me tonight, but I'm content with that. It was only recently that I even started going to NYE parties -- they always seemed to have an underlying air of desperation that set my teeth on edge. I still won't go to bars on this night.
And as befits the season, I've been thinking about the year behind -- the last few years actually, and where I am now.
2000 was a horrible year for me. I used to joke bitterly that so many people had perpetuated the meme that the world would end in 2000 that the universe was drawn to comply.
It wasn't the beginning the bad stuff but it felt like the focal pont for a lot of it. It was the year that choices felt like mistakes. It was the year feeling like a failure. It was loss and heartbreak and depression and one-fucking-thing-after-another.
It was the one time in my life I have ever felt old.
2001 was the journey from Gevurah to Chesed. Nobody was going to be able to do this for me, I had to get myself out of the place I was in through sheer perversity. My memory of that year is one of miles and miles of plodding through endless desert.
I was alone in the work but never in the journey. Always I had guides and companions, often unexpected ones, who stuck with me in spite of the times of getting lost and dispairing and falling down and all the times it seemed like I had done nothing but make endless circles that took me right back to where I had started.
2002 was the year I looked up and realized that I had made it, that the desert was gone and that I was once again in a cool, fertile beaurtiful place. The shit is still close behind me and I can still smell the scent of burning if the wind is coming from the right direction but it is behind me now.
God, it feels good to be back.
And sometimes when I think about these things I think it must seem an over-dramatic way of describing a crap period in my life, but I don't care. Not all battles are external and not all invaders carry guns. I know I am a different person than I was three years ago.
I lost things. Important, meaningful, sometimes essential things. But blood and tears were the fertilizer for this green place where I am now, and I do not regret those deaths.
Life is good.
And as befits the season, I've been thinking about the year behind -- the last few years actually, and where I am now.
2000 was a horrible year for me. I used to joke bitterly that so many people had perpetuated the meme that the world would end in 2000 that the universe was drawn to comply.
It wasn't the beginning the bad stuff but it felt like the focal pont for a lot of it. It was the year that choices felt like mistakes. It was the year feeling like a failure. It was loss and heartbreak and depression and one-fucking-thing-after-another.
It was the one time in my life I have ever felt old.
2001 was the journey from Gevurah to Chesed. Nobody was going to be able to do this for me, I had to get myself out of the place I was in through sheer perversity. My memory of that year is one of miles and miles of plodding through endless desert.
I was alone in the work but never in the journey. Always I had guides and companions, often unexpected ones, who stuck with me in spite of the times of getting lost and dispairing and falling down and all the times it seemed like I had done nothing but make endless circles that took me right back to where I had started.
2002 was the year I looked up and realized that I had made it, that the desert was gone and that I was once again in a cool, fertile beaurtiful place. The shit is still close behind me and I can still smell the scent of burning if the wind is coming from the right direction but it is behind me now.
God, it feels good to be back.
And sometimes when I think about these things I think it must seem an over-dramatic way of describing a crap period in my life, but I don't care. Not all battles are external and not all invaders carry guns. I know I am a different person than I was three years ago.
I lost things. Important, meaningful, sometimes essential things. But blood and tears were the fertilizer for this green place where I am now, and I do not regret those deaths.
Life is good.
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(no subject)
Date: 2003-01-01 12:10 am (UTC)I'm so glad for you that you made it out and that you're in a good place now. I'm still going through that desert, but your post reminded me that there *is* a green place, and I'll get it it eventually.
Thank you.
:)
(no subject)
Date: 2003-01-01 02:49 am (UTC)Good luck, and good speed. :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2003-01-01 09:02 am (UTC)The weird thing is, I have no idea what the green place is going to look like. Life has surprised me before in too many times and ways. But it's kind of neat that way too...
(no subject)
Date: 2003-01-01 12:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-01-01 01:55 am (UTC)Sounds like you & I have parallel lives.
2000 was the year my life burned to the ground, 2001 I had to try to sort out what could be salvaged, 2002 was the year things started to grow again.
It's hard to weigh the losses against the gains, there's really no way to compare them.
but yes, life is good.
happy new year.
love to you and yours.
Re:
Date: 2003-01-01 02:46 am (UTC)*nod*
There are experiences that I look back on and I say, "It wasn't worth it." But as you say that's not something you can really evaluate.
Those things were a part of the person I was then and that life that I had. I am no longer that person and this is a damn good life.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-01-01 06:20 am (UTC)[not out of the desert, still getting hit by the occasional sand-storm here, but hey, reminds you of what you left behind]
This is the kind of post that deserves a discussion over 6 Guinness' amd much listening and nodding in agreement.
When shall we three (or 40-odd? how amny have we dragged into this with us??!) meet again?
(no subject)
Date: 2003-01-01 09:55 pm (UTC)Once you have, there is a certain amount of security in knowing that no matter how bad things get, that you can survive and eventually flourish in spite of it all.
When shall we three (or 40-odd? how amny have we dragged into this with us??!) meet again?
Damn good question, Mr Chaos. With all the plans we have afoot we will find some way of getting you over here.