Goodbye 23

It’s my annual pre-birthday post! In previous years I’ve posted a summary of the year just gone, as if I’m writing to myself a year ago with a sneak-peak of what to expect. A prologue to the year that I was about to have.

This post will not be the prologue to the last year. There is a small part of my experience that I’m just not able to write about yet, and without including it, it’s really not a true reflection of my year. It was both a conclusion and a catalyst to a lot of things. So, in that I’m unable to write authentically about the past year the way I traditionally do on this day, I’m going to talk about my year a little more generally.

I haven’t written publicly this year as much as last year. The main reason for that has been that I’ve devoted my time to other projects, but there is another. Earlier in the year I was slightly disarmed when someone presented me with their perception of one of my blog posts, and it was so far from the truth I had been trying to convey. It was my first experience of ‘death of the author’. The reason I have loved this blog so much is because I have been able to use it as a way to tell my story the way I have seen and felt it. I had always felt that my thoughts were coming across the way I meant them to. And then in this one instance, that wasn’t the case. I was really set back by the reality that other people can see your words another way, hear your message differently, and ultimately, use that to create a different you in their heads. I found it difficult to deal with. That my words, which have usually made me feel so in control, could become twisted in a manner I don’t recognise.

This does, of course, happen in life as well. Everyone of your friends knows a different you, everyone you’ve met would describe you in a different way. Throughout the year, I have sometimes struggled with that reality.

Last night, an Instagram post from someone I don’t know, a girl I follow for her t shirt designs, prompted a slightly tipsy me to send her a message. In the past few months she has been through more grief and hardship than anyone I know in real life. I messaged her explaining who I was, and why I wanted her to know I was rooting for her. I woke up, saw her lovely reply, and was glad. Glad and sure that I was me, who gets tipsy and messages people who need it with words that get them through another day. I’ve accepted that some people may have a different idea of me. That’s okay. I know who I am, and I am pretty good.

This birthday eve has been spent in complete and total darkness. I don’t mean that in a poetic way, like because I don’t know what the year ahead holds, but literally, because I arrived home after work to find my flat has no electricity and won’t have any until tomorrow morning. So I’m sitting here, (as my carefully prepared meals woefully defrost in the fridge), draped in battery powered fairy lights, typing like there’s no tomorrow. But there is a tomorrow, and I will be 24. In last year’s post, I ended with these words:

“I've become more grateful for what I have this year than ever before and if, the day before my 24th birthday, I still have everything I have now, well that's all I've ever wanted anyway.”

I do still have all of the things I’m grateful for, but also, absolutely everything is different. I live somewhere else, I work in an amazing job I didn’t think I could get, my relationships have changed, I’m friends with some new people, I have a different idea of myself, and I have once again proven myself stronger and more powerful than I thought I was. I’ve done things I would not have imagined possible (who knew I would set up a charity, lol). This year has gone exactly the way my horoscope said it would. Transformative, empowering, life-changing. And while I am sure that the stars helped, I am going to give most of the credit to myself, and hope that the stars won’t be too mad about that.

So here’s what I learned during this plot-twisting, life-affirming, awe-inspiring, holy-shit year. Be unapologetic about your wants, needs, dreams. If something in your life is holding you back, if you’ve changed and you need your life to as well, do it. If you’re waiting for a sign, this is it. Move, grow, reach out - give that back-of-the-brain idea a chance. All you have to do is flick the switch. Which is an analogy which is slightly hindered by the lack of electricity I am currently experiencing.

As always on my birthday eve, I am so grateful for the past year, I would say maybe the best one of my life. Certainly the year that proved my own strength. I hope my next birthday doesn’t start devoid of electricity. But I won’t be mad if it does. Because I am full of light.

x