Gratitude in Darkness: A New Year’s Musing
Twenty days left of this decade: what a wild ride we have found ourselves barely strapped into. I don’t know if I have the energy in me to look back to the details of the last ten years but it’s fascinating to look back into journal entries of mine from 2009.
If you knew ten years ago what you know now, what would you tell yourself?
Would you had even cared back then? Believed a single thing future you would divulge?
The things I wrote about a decade ago seem like just yesterday but also, incredibly distant. It’s very apparent that 2009 was a difficult time for both my partner and me, though my memories feel a bit hazy these days without my journal. The last entry that I had recorded for that year was cynical with a strange twist at the end; a small light of hope. I wrote of sadness and how I seemingly felt comfort in basking in the familiarity of it. The words sank heavy in black ink on those pages:
“I’m addicted to this pain and misery. From a vague perspective; an outsider’s view, I am positive. Cheerful, almost. But only my journal and I know that this is a false image that I keep up so others will accept me.”
Whoa. Full stop.
I continued-
“They don’t know how I bleed. They don’t know how my insides rip apart every time I hear a song from my past or how my eyes well up with tears each time I think about what could have been. I think about death all the time-not about mine but about the people I love and how paralyzing it would be. I think about things I know will only keep my wounds open because I like to feel.
…sometimes, though, love will shoot through my veins with such crippling force. Sometimes, it will stop my breath.”
Evan and I went through a multitude of tansitions that year. January of 2009, we packed up the few belongings we had to move in together and build a new life in Metro Detroit. We started new jobs, struggled to find new friends or any creative outlets, I attempted to end our relationship twice and moved out of our apartment for less than 24 hours. We got back together and soon after got a puppy when I finally decided and accepted that he was it for me. We tried to purchase a home for $40,000 and were denied so we set our sights on Seattle, instead. We agreed on making the leap at the end of 2010 but concluded that we should get married before moving across the country. That year brought such a whirlwind of emotions, it’s no wonder my mind had taken a hard dive into darkness. If only 2009 Jenn knew what 2010 Jenn would write soon after:
“I feel like I’ve been so stupid. So blind. All these years thinking that I had to keep moving and searching to find that place that I can settle down and write my music…but I’ve come to realize that it’s been here all along. It doesn’t matter where I am, I can make this happen. The only thing I should do is look forward-I have so much to look forward to. I’m in love with him, balloons or no balloons.”
It’s incredible how often we stand in our own way. None of this leads me to any grand self-realization but it does serve as a solid reminder to be a little more gracious with ourselves. To find gratitude in and for even our darkest hour. Had I known back then what I know now, I wouldn’t trade a single moment, no matter how gut-wrenching. While I’m not totally sold on the notion that everything happens for a reason, it’s hard to believe that making any choice differently in my past would lead me to where I am now.
Time: it’s such a fickle thing.
Sometimes all we need is a little bit of it but when it comes down to the bottom line, a little is all we really have.
Cheers to a new decade. I hope that patience and grace finds you and me, both.
