Ready to face 2022 with hope, faith, & love

A new year is upon us and for me, it’s time to set my intentions for the coming year. You may be wondering what the point is considering it looks as though we may be facing yet another twelve months of pandemic-related challenges and unknowns, but the only thing we really have power over is our attitude and I intend to maintain power over mine. (If you’re a reader, I recommend Eli Weasel’s, A Man’s Search for Meaning.)

In 2019, I set my intention on raising my energetic vibration. In retrospect, this is something I’ve been doing all my life, but I called it “looking on the bright side.” It’s not that I don’t feel the hurt or see the pain in the world, I do. And then I do my best to see past it, to search for the lessons or the meaning, something that can move me forward while also making sense out of the nonsensical.

Three years ago, I was burnt out, running on sheer will, determined to be a better person while also making a positive difference in the world around me. The universe, or God, if you will, made several attempts to get my attention that year, to tell me to stop and reflect, but I didn’t listen. I was determined to push through and to become my best self, to find and fulfill my purpose in life. I let my ego take control and the universe responded with a car accident that stripped me of the abilities I thought made me who I am. From my perspective at the time, it rendered me useless.

So, naturally, my intention for 2020 was to focus on healing – my brain, my body, and my soul. Then the pandemic hit, but I didn’t let that sway me from my intention. I decided that if I died, fine, but if I lived, well, then I wanted to be as healthy as possible. Now, it sounds like healing was my priority, but it turns out it came second to me trying to recreate the me I was before the accident, to regain my life, my job, and my purpose. I tried to return to work before I was ready and quickly discovered I wasn’t as healed as I wanted or needed to be. I couldn’t do my job.

And then tragedy struck again. My stepfather died July 16, 2020, and I found myself moving in with my mother with a promise to stay with her for at least a year, so she could have time to heal in the comfort of her own home.

My plans for reclaiming my “old” life were once again derailed, and I fell back into a sort of survival mode, but I learned something. I learned that I’m not my profession and I’m not what I do. I just am. I’m not worthy of life because I do anything special; I’m worthy of life because I’m here. Our worth is found in our being, in our existence, not in what we can contribute. (That’s not to say that we shouldn’t be trying to do good in the world when we can.)

I learned something else too. I learned that I impulsively committed to staying with my mother for the year not just to help her, but, subconsciously, to right a perceived wrong. When I was 12 years old, I abandoned my little sister and my mother. I left them and went to live with my father. For the last almost forty years, I had no idea that I felt that way, that I had abandoned them. I hated myself for leaving my little sister behind.

And just like that, I learned that part of healing myself included forgiving myself for the things I thought were unforgivable.

On New Year’s Day 2021, I caught my breath, regained my spirit, and decided to try again. (I’m super resilient.) I set a double intention for the year of raising my vibration and healing my soul, brain, and body. Looking back, I probably should have added survival to that list of intentions because that was probably the predominant theme for 2021.

This past year has been hard in a variety of ways. I won’t catalogue those here, but I do want to say something about the last four months, which, as per usual, have been filled with desperation and despair. Every fall, for many years now, I’ve gone into a deeper depression than normal despite my many medications. It always gets worse the closer it gets to Christmas. While I do have seasonal affective disorder, it’s not that.

You see, my life as I knew it was obliterated in the fall of 2007. I can’t even begin to describe the pain, but if I had to venture a guess, I’d say it felt like losing myself, my “home,” my foundation. I asked for a divorce I didn’t really want, but my husband did. I haven’t been able to fully love myself or anyone else in about 14 years. I drove away the only person I’ve ever been in love with, and I’ve never fully recovered. (Yes, there’s much more to it than that and, no, it wasn’t all my fault. I’m not going to get into the bits and bites, my ex has moved on, and I’m happy for him.)

With that said, what I’ve realized this year is that I’m not going to recover from that loss, not in the way that I expected. I’m not going to forget him or stop loving him or miraculously wake up and be completely free from thoughts of him. And that’s okay. That’s okay because it brought me to a lesson, one I didn’t think I’d ever learn.

I’ve learned that love is real. We can’t touch it, hold it, or lock it in a box, but it’s still real. It can hurt like a son of a bee, but it can also heal some of the deepest wounds. And the cliché, the one that says, “true love never dies,” well it’s true. It’s just open to interpretation. You see, what I’ve learned is that I will love my husband always because what I felt for him really was love, not lust or dependence or some other imitation of the real thing. It doesn’t mean he was my soul mate. Heck, I’m still not certain if that’s a real thing or not. It doesn’t mean I can’t move on if I allow myself to do so. It just means that I will forever love him and want what’s best for him. That’s it. No strings, just love.

The people we truly love, whether it’s romantic or not, we will always love. If we don’t, then it probably wasn’t love in the first place. Oh, and you can love someone who doesn’t love you back.

In case you missed it, there was an additional little bit of learning there, it was the part where I said, “if I allow myself to do so.” You see, I’ve had the power to move on all this time, but I haven’t done it because I was afraid of what that might mean, and because I was once again punishing myself. Unfortunately, by punishing myself, I also punished the people I love who still share their lives with me. I stopped being the mother I wanted to be. This, above all else, will always be my biggest regret. And I need to find a way to forgive myself for it… some day.

So, to recap, in this past year I’ve done a lot of healing, far more than I ever thought possible, but I’m not done. I haven't recounted all the lessons here. Some are completed. Some are not.

Also, while I was busy trying to heal myself, I also did some damage. Mostly to my body. You see, I’m an addict. No, not drugs. Heck, I don’t even drink anymore, having mostly given that up when I was 19. But there are many things we can become addicted to that can hurt us in the short-term or the long-term, such as food, sex, spending, and so on. I’ve been anorexic, bulimic, and a binge-eater. I have far more books than I need or can possibly read in my lifetime. And this past year I let someone back into my life who had no reason to be there, simply because I wanted physical companionship, the kind that reminded me of a time when I felt safe and wanted. For this, I risked my relationship with the two people I love most in the world. Was it desperation that led me to do that or was this just another way to punish myself? I don’t know. What I do know, is that I won’t do it again. I'm checking that one off as a lesson learned and not to be repeated, not ever again.

Now, just a couple of weeks away from 2022, I find myself doing what I always do – reviewing the year that’s past and looking ahead toward the one that’s coming, taking stock, and setting goals.

There’s a good chance that I’m a raving lunatic. (Most of you don’t know this, but it’s something a dear relative used to call me when I was younger. A lot.) There’s also a good chance that I’m finally waking up to reality, bursting out of the bubble I’ve been living in for decades. Who knows?! Either way, I feel the movement, the change, and it’s in a forward direction, which is good enough for me. For now.

So, what about 2022? Well, my intentions are three-fold this year. First, I’d like to survive to see 2023 and beyond. Second, it’s well past the time that I “get my shit together” and so I want to focus on changing my habits – my daily routines – to show up and face life as the person I want to be rather than the person I’ve been. And the final intention, I want to raise my vibration by viewing the world around me through the lens of unconditional love. That last one will no doubt be the most difficult to fulfill, but I’m determined to do it. If I fall, I’ll just keep getting back up again until I get it right.

No matter what 2022 brings, I will do my best to face it with hope, faith, and love.