2019/2020
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I’m going to be a bit selfish with this blog post – I don’t do this often so I believe that I get a free pass this one time.
But.
I’m going to briefly explain why 2019 has been the best year of my entire life, but in the worst way possible.
I was always told to conceal my emotions for you never know who will be listening and what they will do with that information. This constant fear of: don’t allow anyone to know what’s going on in my life throughout my entire life is honestly very tiring. I am never able to freely express anything because I always get this voice in my head that is essentially yelling, “abort mission” into a horn speaker. In 2019, although I am still very closed off, I believe that I have improved vastly. I’m writing this for goodness sake … what I’m doing right now is terrifying and I cannot believe I’m typing all of this.
I am actually thankful for my friends that I’ve met in grade nine for breaking my shell a bit, and although it doesn’t seem like much, my telltale sign that I was doing better was when I stopped tensing every muscle in my body when someone hugged me. That is an improvement that I am grateful for to this day, and I’m grateful for those friends because they never gave up on me. I, unfortunately, don’t tell them my gratitude often. Honestly, I sometimes feel like I’m a sociopath because emotions are so difficult for me to understand at times. I don’t know how to properly express my feelings, but they understand that, and I thank them for that.
Now, this might get a little heavy for a minute, but in 2019 I learned that I am a lot sadder than I have imagined. I started noticing this feeling a lot more frequently at the end of grade ten when it felt like everything that I was doing was wrong. I constantly felt defeated because although everything was genuinely so amazing, it all felt like a lie. Which doesn’t make sense, I know. But it felt like every happy emotion that I was feeling, was truly the antonym of it. It was kind of fascinating in a messed up way. But these feelings did help me think of questionable stories for my blog, so thanks for that, I guess.
After the lowest of lows at the end of grade ten, I was met with the highest of highs when I went to Ukraine that summer. It’s honestly bizarre how much family is important … and I never really realized that before. I have a very small family here in Canada with me, I never understood the hype of big families although mine is huge. When I went to Ukraine, and I felt the care that my family had for me – whether it was exaggerated or not – I finally felt like I was important since a very long time. I don’t mean to sound over-dramatic, but that’s genuinely how it felt. I was always jealous of my friends growing up that would tell me that they’re going to go hang out with their cousins on the weekend, I would just think to myself: yeah, I’m going to go fly across the ocean real quick, and do the same. In Ukraine, I was able to fulfill that dream, and it felt liberating. It felt like I was throwing up my middle finger to little Samantha from the third grade that was telling me how she’s going to her grandma’s house the next day. Screw you, Samantha.
I was so happy there that I had Ukraine-withdrawal for like a week after I got back. It felt like I went from reading fiction to non-fiction, which could be nice, but it really wasn’t.
Now beloved school. I actually don’t really remember how I felt about going back to school, but it honestly kind of felt like I never left. But the transition from summer to school was so smooth that I forgot that summer even happened.
But it was hard, grade 11 is hard. It took me a while to get on track and to realize how it all works. I was so confused because I was doing the same thing I was doing every other year, but I wasn’t getting the outcomes that I wanted. They weren’t awful, but I was disappointed. Everyone I cared about was disappointed. And even though as time went on and the outcomes were getting better, they were still disappointed. It’s hard to explain stuff I’m not allowed to.
But to condense this little TedTalk, I’m going to skip to the end of October. I own this journal that some might have seen before. But I would pull it out and write whatever I’m feeling at that moment, or doodle in it, or throw it.
It’s essentially a diary but I feel more mature saying journal, so I’m going to keep calling it that.
I never allowed a single person to open it and read it. That was mine, mine to keep secret. I’ve never looked back at anything I wrote in it because everything in there is just throw up. Pure throw up from my mind that I had to let out. Unfortunately, that privacy was violated recently, so I won’t be writing in it any longer, but that journal was like a free therapist. Genuinely would recommend it.
Now, where I’m going with this is: I was not the happiest one day. I had no one to talk to – I did, but I’m not that type of person to tell my bad to a person with good. I don’t want my sadness to clash with the other person’s happiness.
So I started writing in my journal, it was a song. I didn’t finish it, I didn’t make it cohesive, I just made it. Fast-forwarding a bit, I was told to write a spoken word. I knew what I wanted to write, but I was scared. It was threatening in a way. But for the first time, I looked back in that journal and found that song. I wrote it down and I added and erased and changed and thesaurirized. I ended up with the spoken word: I am okay. It’s so funny how this spoken word is a symbol for both my happiness and sadness yet no one really fully understood that. But I wanted it that way. I made a universal spoken word that pertained to a specific moment in my life. I am proud of myself for that.
I found this newfound confidence that I’ve never had before. I remembered the passion that I had for both writing and performing. That was an interesting time in 2019 that taught me the most.
After the highs of the spoken word, I went back to my lows, and so far it’s been this scale that sometimes goes up, and sometimes goes down. It varies every single day. But I’m okay, and I want everyone to know that. This was just a convoluted year that I have never seemed to solve. But at the end of the day, that is the source of wisdom, the source of memories, and stories. I am fine, because words are physical, and I would like for that to be true. And it will be.
So, to wrap this therapy session up, all I would like to say is:
Fuck you 2019, but thank you.
