It's getting better... slowly.

 
 I'll be completely honest here - it's been difficult, I've not been myself for a very long time. I haven't even been able to maintain this blog, and that's something I really used to love. If anyone noticed, I deleted a lot of old posts and I guess I'm basically starting over. Here's the truth of it all:

2023 was the worst year I have ever lived.

I don't say that lightly either. I've had years where I've lost those beloved to me, years that changed everything about the person I was, years that gave me both things I never wanted and stripped away things I never thought I could live without. Somehow, I always made it through. Somehow, I always came out on the other side. Either it gave me strength or it traumatized me to where I became numb and compartmentalized enough to feel like it left something other than destruction behind.

2023 was not any of that.

I started the year recovering from a surgery that I'm still not sure I was supposed to walk away from - it felt like I had avoided my final destination moment. I was recovering from a painful surgery that wouldn't have been necessary if I'd had doctors that bothered from the start. Instead of hearing me, they just kept dismissing things without ever actually looking at how bad they really were. Eventually it got so bad it was visible to the naked eye and there was no way to put me on the back burner any more. I still haven't recovered from that and it's not likely I ever will, either physically or mentally. I'm learning to cope though, however slowly. 

That year was nothing but pain and struggle, from start to finish. It was a constant fight. I cried myself to sleep almost more nights than there were days. I was so completely alone that I almost forgot what it felt like to have a gentle voice, a willing ear, something, anything at all, to make me feel like I was worth even anything. I was on the brink.

I suppose if I were decent there'd be a trigger warning here, but every day that passed just stripped me of more hope and eventually I was just a walking open sore... And on April 1st that year a greedy hate-filled landlord evicted my family from our home of seven years so she could do a Mickey Mouse renovation and create short-term rentals to turn over 5x the profit that a family would deliver. 

I nearly destroyed what small remnant there was of myself just to get my family safely settled. The move 90 days after the notice was the most physically taxing thing I have ever experienced, and I was still recovering from a major surgery, only seven months out from losing my kidney and the last section of small bowel they can safely remove, I was just so sick that whole year. One virus after another, just draining every drop before I could even start to replenish a fraction of the life fluids that were snipped out of me in that OR.

I really feel like I'm living on borrowed time. Every day that passes, I wonder if it was borrowed from another time or person. It's truly baffling to me, how I’ve managed to stay in this world this long and not have become a drooling catatonic.

Some days were a struggle not to just find the nearest bridge or gas oven and just slip away to the hearth of my ancestors. Some days still are but I've gotten better, enough that it's no longer the first thought when I wake in the morning nor the last thought at night as I drift.

I spent so much time by myself with fear and negativity swirling through my thoughts, after a while I stopped feeling alone and learned again how to rely on only myself because that has always been the one stable constant I knew would always be there. 

I went shopping alone; I went to lunch alone; I went to the park alone; I went to the library alone; I walked for hours alone; I rode my electric scooter all over wherever I could, alone. I worked on whatever bit of my art I could to distract my mind from the things that were tearing me apart inside, alone. 

Strange revelations spring from all of this alone time though, I think I actually prefer it. When my head isn't screaming and my anxiety isn't trying to defeat me, alone is really quite nice.

 I didn't write my new year round up like I used to do on all my blogs, I couldn't bring myself to rip open all of those wounds just as they were starting to dry and crust over. I'm only marginally ready now, to be perfectly honest. 

2023 was a terrible, no good, very bad year. 

I never want another year like that again, it almost broke me. I'm not sure I'll ever fully recover as it is but I know there's enough of me left that I'll fight just a little more, stand just a little longer, make it though one more day and hopefully one more after that, for as long as I have the tenacity to carry on.

For now I think I'll be ok and "for now" that's all anyone can rightfully ask of me.