The Lessons of 2019

I don’t think I’ll ever forget the emotional muck and mess that was 2019.

The lessons from this year have been harsh, necessary and are ultimately leading me to become a person I genuinely like.

She’s funny!
She smiles a lot!
She owns her own business!
She meditates! She reads!
She doesn’t make promises she can’t keep!
She’s a good mom, an okay partner and still kind of a bad roommate!

It took me a literal lifetime to get there, but a year of totally falling apart certainly helped accelerate the process.

Like say you were to ask, “How are you?”

Early in 2019, I would’ve averted eye contact from underneath my bell jar as I told you, “No, yeah, things are good… how are you?”

Toward the end of the summer, I would’ve said, “I’m burned out of life, can’t control my emotions, quit my full-time job and don’t know WTF I’m going to do next. Do you want to talk at length about all our feelings and unprocessed trauma?” If not, I’d go back to listening to Brené Brown audiobooks or googling things like the time it takes Lexapro to start kicking in, affordable silent yoga retreats and in-patient mental health programs.

Today I can earnestly say, “I am great—really.”

Well, that’s the very abridged version anyway. The homework for the lessons that got me to that place was really fucking hard. I’m not quite ready to share everything about this ongoing experience here (maybe never?), but I also don’t want to minimize the personal reckoning, medication, physical activity and therapy that went into lifting up a heavy ass bell jar this year.

And 2020, I’m ready for your first lesson. I brought my #2 pencils and everything.