I keep trying to write a post about my first year back in Portland. I hit the anniversary of my arrival in my favorite city a few weeks ago but I've been planning on writing a blog entry about it for a while now. The problem is that as soon as I try to start typing, everything leaves my mind. A blank screen usually has the opposite effect on me where ideas and words start spilling out all over each other, each thought wanting to get top billing so that it comes out in a jumbled mess that I then have to sort through and edit for far longer than it took me to write the damn thing in the first place. But, at this point, I'd prefer that approach as opposed to what I'm experiencing now...which is silence. Void. It's frustrating because I have so much to say.
This has been an epic year for me in wonderful, horrible, exciting, debilitating, terrifying, exhilarating, hurtful, healing ways. I have been through a lifetime of emotions in just twelve short months, a time period that sped by and seemed to take a thousand years.
I've learned incredible things about myself and the people by whom I'm surrounded.
I figured out how weak and how strong I can actually be.
I discovered my breaking points and pushed others to theirs.
I found my self-worth in the most awful place possible.
I learned that I am a hero, both to myself and to some others as well.
I had originally decided to list all the great things I accomplished this year but I realized that it would make them seem trite and the list would most likely depress me while leaving others unimpressed. After all, the list itself is not that important. The point is that I'm trying new things. I'm out in the world, giving myself the chance to succeed and understanding that the fear of failure is just that: a fear. Failure doesn't actually exist unless you do nothing at all. Yoda had it right: Do or Do Not. There is no Try. Because Trying something is success, no matter the outcome. If things don't come out exactly the way you had hoped, there is always (and I mean ALWAYS) a lesson to be learned. Most of the time, there are multiple lessons and, if you're lucky, you'll discover some answers or at least start on the path towards finding them.
The truth is that I'm no longer taking part in the Blame Game. Life is life. Good or bad. You will have wonderful things happen to you and you will have less than wonderful things happen to you. Sometimes awful things will happen to you. But you keep going because stopping is not an option. You learn what you need to do to make things right for yourself. It can take a while to discover what that is or how to go about making it happen but you learn the ways to heal yourself while continuing to live and breathe and function at whatever level you can in order to survive. You will be judged and forgotten. You will be loved and inspiring. You will be something different to every single life you come in contact with so don't worry about doing the Right Thing or trying to make someone else happy because you will inevitably disappoint. And the chance that you will disappoint the one person you were seeking to please is not far-fetched. And then where are you? So you do what makes you genuinely happy because, until you're happy, you'll never find happiness in anything or anyone else.
My New Year's Day was Christmas Day this year for a reason that is too personal, emotional, humiliating and scary to share. Maybe one day it won't seem so silencing but, for the time being, all anyone needs to know is that I'm simultaneously starting over and continuing my journey. It's a new beginning but I'm still the same me.
And THAT is fucking wonderful.
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