One Year On

“Every woman that finally figured out her worth, has picked up her suitcases of pride and boarded a flight for freedom, which landed in the valley of change.” – Shannon L. Adler

It’s been so long since I wrote anything for this blog – well, since I wrote anything I was okay with posting! To be honest, I’ve mostly been busy throwing myself into life…as much as I can in these times, anyway.

These last couple of weeks, I’ve been doing so much reflecting. I realised it’s been exactly one year since I changed my life, and it has been such a defining year for me. I’ve been looking back and thinking about the challenges the past year has presented, as well as the progress I’ve made, among other things. I wasn’t sure how I would feel about this day – would it be painful, or would I feel celebratory? It’s been a bit of a mixture of emotions, simply because I’ve experienced both extremes at various points.

I’ll start with the negatives, and the challenges I’ve encountered. In all honesty, this past year was one that I wasn’t sure I’d make it through. I understand that this probably sounds extreme, but at that time I couldn’t fully comprehend and process what was actually going on in my life. I understood that I was carrying a lot of pain, and had been struggling with it all for some time, but I didn’t understand why I was doing a lot of the things I was doing, and I couldn’t fully grasp why I had felt so depressed. I just knew I couldn’t handle it anymore, and I wanted it to end. I felt that not only was there a chance I was wrecking my life, but I was disrupting other lives too, and that was the main reason I wasn’t sure I’d come through all of this. I could more or less deal with causing myself problems, but not others I cared about. This all hit me a few weeks after I left my ex – I couldn’t get the anxiety out of my head, that all I had achieved was ruining my life, and sucked others into a big drama.

The other thing I struggled with the most, was visualising what the rest of my life was going to turn out like. I thought I’d see an open road, filled with potential and opportunity, that would carry me wherever I wanted to go. Instead, I saw nothingness, a void. To spend so long feeling as though the walls were closing in on me, to then having those walls suddenly removed, was very jarring for me, and I struggled to adjust to that, for a long time. If I’m being totally honest, I do still find having a tonne of choices overwhelming at times. I feel like this is probably a reason why I try to structure and plan things so much, but I hope as time continues to pass, I’ll feel less of a need to validate the feeling of having control of my life.

As something of an addition to my last point about seeing the future as a bunch of nothingness, I had a huge feeling of hopelessness hanging over me for the first few months. I feel like to some people looking from the outside in, last year could read as a big, empowering, bold moment. The reality was very far from that. I had hoped it would be an awesome feeling of relief and freedom, but it all came from a place of pure fear and desperation. I was terrified – both that I had done the wrong thing, and that I’d go back, despite my instincts telling me to run and not look back. I feel like the first time I acknowledged this feeling, I felt a lot of shame in it, but I think it’s just as important to acknowledge it as well as the other feelings. Often, the reality of a situation doesn’t match our expectations, but that’s when we can really learn a lot about ourselves – what we end up making of the reality, whether or not we adapt.

Now, onto some more positive points! The most obvious, of course, is how much happier and carefree I am these days. I am so proud to say I am living life for myself now, rather than on anybody else’s terms. These days if I choose to do something, it’s because I genuinely want to do it. Of course, my need to be a people pleaser hasn’t fully gone away, and it probably never will, but it is something I am working on. I’m happy with my progress, and seeing how far I have come has been a real confidence boost for me. I do attribute a lot of this progress to the first lockdown, because it forced me to confront everything I was trying to ignore, and hide away from myself. I noticed over the summer that I was really starting to feel more “me” and so much lighter and happier. Yes, I do still have my bad days, but that’s just part of being human! I’m more resilient in dealing with these tougher days, and if anything, it just makes me appreciate the good times even more.

I do think that my favourite thing is that I’ve realised I’m letting myself dream again, without getting caught up in limitations or roadblocks. The full realisation of this only came fairly recently, thanks to my semi-spontaneous purchase of a planner. It had a section for writing down your dreams, for your life in general, and at first I really struggled to think of what to write. It makes me so happy whenever I think of one to add to the list, whether it’s something small and fairly trivial, or a big aspiration I had previously talked myself out of, or allowed myself to be talked out of it. Now I feel like I have a really good support circle which I appreciate so much, I’m finally letting myself think about those aspirations again, this time with the view of turning them into a reality.

I’m so proud of myself for taking my first steps towards achieving one of the biggest items on my list, which is to study for a degree with the Open University. I feel like it’ll feel pretty scary once it starts getting close to the course starting, because I haven’t been in education since I did my A Levels, but I’m finally in a place where I feel like I can handle it, and balance studying and working. In short, I actually believe in myself! While it is amazing that I have so many good people in my corner on this, it feels even better to finally be on my own team, instead of attacking myself with ‘what if’s. I’m amazed that I’ve been able to transform that previous future nothingness into something to aim for, and I am so excited for the rest of my life!

The biggest challenge for me over the last year has definitely been expressing my feelings, and was one of the main reasons I set up this blog. For years, I have struggled to acknowledge, articulate and express my feelings and emotions in a constructive manner. So I gave myself a space where I could try to find the right words, without that fear of judgement or being misunderstood. I do tend to describe myself as being allergic to talking about feelings, to a degree, and I do definitely feel scared of being vulnerable. This past year has helped me understand that my fear if vulnerability runs deeper than I initially thought…or maybe I had just been in denial about that, too. Either way, this blog is my first step towards tackling the issue, and despite my hesitation, it’s something I am going to continue working on in 2021. I would like to say that I have made a bit of progress here, but I’m not sure if it’s just wishful thinking on my part! So I guess I’ll say if you’re reading this, and you’ve managed to get conversation about feelings, out of me, then congratulations!

The second biggest challenge has been altering my perception of myself. For the longest time, I blamed myself for what I was going through, and even now, I assign myself blame. As a result, at the time, I did end up feeling as though I deserved what was happening, and that I deserved to be treated the way I had been. I had a very real fear that when I felt ready to get back out there, that I would continue to make similar choices, and perpetuate the cycle. Obviously, I didn’t want that to happen, so something had to change. I had to make myself believe that I deserve goodness, which is easier said than done. I’m still reminding myself – there are times I find myself surprised at a thoughtful gesture, and I tell myself that basic human decency shouldn’t be a surprise. I want decency and kindness to just be the standard in all of my relationships – platonic, romantic, familial – so I need to stop being surprised by it, and accept it as a norm. This is still a work in progress, but my approach towards it is to treat myself the same way I would treat a friend. I’d tell my friends that they deserve nothing but the best, so why shouldn’t I tell myself the same?

To end this, today has been more important to me than I initially thought, and it’s been so good for me to take note of how much I have grown and developed. Not only am I so proud to still be plodding along through life, I’m so pleased at how I have exceeded my expectations. I thought I’d still be hurting and struggling through my days, but I’m so much lighter, and my heart is full! I don’t feel like something is missing from my life. I actually feel that I am enough. Somewhere along the way, I’ve let go of the barrage of worries that used to take up my attention: am I smart enough; funny enough; good enough? There’s a lot of relief that comes with realising that I’m so much more accepting of myself now.

As I said earlier in this post, I am so excited for what’s coming up next for me! I have so much to be excited for, and I’m ready for whatever is in the next chapter of my life. I’d also like to thank everybody who’s been there for me and supported me, because you’ve helped me get to where I am today. You’ve helped me become a better version of myself, the person I was looking for, and wanting to be. I honestly don’t know where I would be, without having my friends and family behind me. So again – thank you! And thank you if you’ve read this post, and made it this far!