making friends with change & time.
Last January was arguably the first time I felt like I was completely underwater in the least poetic way possible. 2022 came to a close and I was holding onto that thread like it was a life raft. Everything bad and hard had piled up in the final months of the year, and the belief that I got to leave it all behind and start fresh with the new year and forget about all of the ways the universe had steered me off course was the only thing keeping me from losing it entirely. It felt like the new year’s resolution of all resolution’s. Be done. Get over it. It’s gone. Start new. But like all things swept under the rug, the thing that grew inside of me festered and came back with teeth and claws and bad skin.
In retrospect, I could have probably seen this coming. In truth, I probably did. But when things are bad, like rock bottom bad, it becomes addicting. The truth is, it is so much harder to succumb to the rotting hibernation than it is to pick yourself up and keep moving forward. Allowing things to be hard is hard. It is the sore on your lip that you can’t help but gnaw on over and over again, never allowing the skin to stitch itself back together. And when things are bad and hard, the best punishment for letting yourself get here is making it even harder. To start believing that you deserve the rot. To vehemently avoid moving forward. Because moving forward means forgetting, and forgetting means it’s over, and it ending means that things change.
What no one tells you is that the beast of change is much scarier than the thing with teeth and claws and bad skin tearing you up from the inside out. Change is new, its definition is to be unfamiliar. And when the universe won’t stop throwing you curveballs, the essence of change is the most terrifying.
So as January dragged on with its bitter breath and dead lawns, so did I. The rug was running out of space to stuff things under. I felt frozen from the inside out. Frozen in the constant replay of what had happened and how and why and what I should have and could have done differently and wishing that I had. Frozen in the spot on the couch with the days flipping past like an empty rolodex going nowhere. Frozen in the anger and the blame and the grief. Frozen in the knowledge that my light had really gone out this time, frozen in knowing that there was nothing at the end of the tunnel. And who wants to trudge through the dark to just find more dark? Why not just lay down and curl up and wait and wish. Wish that I never started down this tunnel. Wish that I stayed at its mouth instead. Wish that the gates will eventually open up and find me curled up here and waiting. The thing about waiting and wishing is that at some point you run out of wishes. And the waiting just turns into nothing. The waiting turns into then and now and what’s happened already and what hasn’t. The waiting turns into forever. And you’re still in the same spot. Frozen. Just like January.
Pretending is my favorite pastime. The more I think about it, maybe suffering really is. Because suffering means that the other shoe has already dropped. Suffering means that it’s already bad. That it’d be really hard to get any worse. Suffering means that it can only get better. That the war is raging on and on and on but that it’s going to end. It has to. And then what is left when all has been burned and drowned and lost? The fire has to go out, the water has to drain, it has to be found. This is where that good old fashioned pretending comes in handy. When you pretend that all of the shoes have already dropped, when you pretend that what is bad can’t get worse, when you pretend that what is hard must become easy, you have already failed. Pretending is not moving. Pretending is waiting. Waiting in that tunnel. Pretending is wishing. And wishing isn’t real.
And while you’re waiting in the dark, wishing in that spot on the couch, you’re still really just frozen. Frozen in time that keeps on moving. Time does not care that you’re angry and have fingers to point or what should have happened. Time does not care at all. It is the train that does not stop moving that you can not get off. It doesn’t matter if you stand still, if you strap yourself to the tracks, if you keep barreling back to the carts you were already in. The train is moving forward. To stand still is the silliest solution.
What I wish I had told myself in January is that your life is not a vessel for punishment. You can’t actively degrade your timeline of life and expect that you can unpause from that point when you’re ready or just tired of not being ready. Time has already moved on, life has already moved on, everyone around you has already moved on. Moved on so far that there isn’t space left to pity you. There isn’t time left to feel sorry for you. The world is on that train with you and it’s moving. Moving to all of the carts ahead of you. They can’t see you back there anymore. And you can’t see them when your back is to them still trying to rectify the past. But that is a wish. And wishing is not real. And now it is December.
The truth about the girl I was last January, is that I was her in March too. And I am still her in December. But the thing about the girl I am right now, is that I’m not so mad at the girl I was in January anymore. I don’t blame her so much. Life is hard and so is time. And it’s okay to take a break sometimes. But it’s not okay to stop. And maybe I’m still on the same cart I was last January but maybe this time I’m not facing the same direction. Maybe this time I’m looking at what’s ahead of me. Maybe I’m still standing still but maybe I’m just tying my shoes and getting ready to move forward. And maybe I’m just pretending. But what I know about the girl in January is that she’s going to be okay. What I know is that all the while she was frozen and wishing and waiting is that she was still taking tiny steps forward. A whole year came and went and maybe so much of it was wasted by being angry and stuck, but I’m not mad at the year. Not mad at it the way I was in 2022. Not mad at myself. And maybe that small win is actually a really big one.
Change is a comin’ whether I like it or not. Whether I’m afraid of the beast that it is or if I’m ready to give it a hug and kiss on the cheek. Change is already here. And she really wasn’t all that scary. She was the little things that I didn’t even notice. Like washing the sheets and dusting the ceiling fan. She didn’t have as many teeth or claws. Sometimes she did, but not always. Change wasn’t gnawing at the sore on your lip. Change was letting the skin stitch back together. Change is refreshing. Change says that what was familiar really wasn’t all that great anyway. Change means that next year the rug won’t have as much jammed under it. Change is friends with time. To embrace one is to embrace the other.
To the girl I was in January, I’m the girl from December. If you let change and time do the heavy lifting, you won’t be so mad at 2023. If you take the pressure off of 2023 being so much easier than 2022 you won’t find yourself so frozen. If you forgive 2022 for steering you off course, 2023 will start to put you back on track. If you forgive yourself for not standing in the way of life you’ll start to remember to stay out its way. Life knows what it’s doing, whether or not it makes sense to you. Life knows what Gram knew, that if it were fair we’d all be rich and beautiful. To the girl I was in January, I’m the girl from December and I’m holding hands with change and time now and they aren’t so bad.
