2022

After taking an extended hiatus from writing in the last year, I’ve kind of come back around to realise that this is what I will always default back toward. I’ve never really done a reflection upon the years of my life, but I do feel that now would be a pretty good time to start doing something of this ilk given my circumstances in the last month. I am in a negative headspace for the most part right now, though I will aim to write this with the goal of being completely unbiased when reflecting upon the events and emotions I have experienced in 2022. So, let’s try to start and end on a positive and realistic note.

This year started confusingly. I almost cannot even remember or reflect upon what happened/what I felt in those first few months of 2022. I felt like I had experiences with ex partners, which left me feeling very distrustful and broken, but gave me a valuable experience of learning my own self-worth and realising that out of the two of us in that relationship, that I was the one who learned and grew from it, whilst she didn’t. Despite the anguish I felt at the way that ended, I learned from it. However, not immediately. I then went on a multitude of empty experiences, doing things hoping to find an answer, a moment of pleasure, with no real goal in sight, and this ultimately left me feeling pretty hollow and defeated entering the beginning of the second-half of 2022. The one thing I feel I did have at this period was a solid idea of who I should consider genuine friends that I would be willing to go above and beyond for, and those who are not here to stay, and that’s okay.

Approaching May/June, I still felt that this massive hole in myself was missing. I suppose this is a common trend in my life, that I need someone else to care about, something bigger than myself as an individual, someone to share my experiences with, both good and bad. I didn’t have that at the time, and again, felt very unsure of whether I’d have it in me to trust someone to that capacity again. However, come May, I took the leap of faith and approached someone. What ensued was some of the most wholesome, loving and magical months of my life. I didn’t even have to hesitate when it came to fully trusting and committing to this person, regardless of my past, I felt I’d be crazy not to. However, perfection is unachievable for anything and everyone in this life, and I am not different.

Despite the seemingly perfect scenario of my circumstances, I did have a realisation this year of how much my past traumas are going to impact me going forward. I hindered that seemingly perfect relationship with feelings of fear, anxiety, insecurity and a need of reassurance, and no matter how much I tried, I felt there was nothing I could do to fix it, despite knowing how delusional my thoughts were. That being said, eventually those emotions just vanished, not entirely, but to a controllable level. However, by then, the damage had been done in many ways, and she began to spiral in herself despite my healing. It ended. All of the memories, talking non-stop everyday, plans of the future together, things we’d booked and paid for like holidays, gone in an instant, and never returning. I’ve experienced heartbreak before, the tragedy of being hurt, but never like this. I still don’t think I fully have the words to explain how I felt, I still cannot fully process what had occured, or why she left the way she did, with no real explaination, treating me worse than she did people who had genuinely hurt her in the past. I never got the closure I needed, and it tore me apart, it still does.

If anything, I have learned from the end of this year that no matter what, your emotions will deceive you. You are in the life alone, and you may choose to share it with someone else, but at the end of the day, all you ever truly have is yourself. That works in both a positive and a negative sense. Nobody is going to be able to lift you up, they may help, but they cannot do it for you. This goes the same way that nobody is ever going to entirely put you before themselves, even if you were to do that for them, and they’ll drop you instantly if they have to, with no regard for how you’ll feel or recover. I feel this year, I have experienced both sides of life at max level. I have felt highs, excitement, love, happiness, fulfillment, pleasure, all at the highest I have ever felt it. Whilst at the same time, I have experienced the lows of life at the lowest I have ever felt it, with isolation, sadness, betrayal, sickness, anxiety, worthlessness, uncertainty, and fear. It is hard to come out of 2022 and not focus on these extreme negative emotions I have felt and am currently still feeling in many ways. It is hard to see how to move on from this year, and where life will take me going forward. However, all I know is that there is no easy way out. Life keeps going no matter what, and in some ways, that is good, and in others, it is relentlessly fast-paced and unforgiving. It is down to me and me alone to keep up with the pace or fall even further behind.