I feel like the last day of 2019 deserves some kind of recognition. It's taking with it not just twelve months, but the last ten years. It feels surreal that tomorrow we'll wake up in a new decade, with a timestamp sci-fi movies used to indicate a far and fantastical future.
I feel like I should have poetic words about the last ten years but I don't. I graduated high school and college. I got a job and quit a job and found my calling. I went to different countries, different states, different cities. I loved hard and fast and I hurt the same way; bright and wild like gasoline on a burn pile.
I stood in front of strangers and read them my words and soaked up their clapping and smiled when it was over. I wrote entire books and sold them and saw them in the hands of others.
I got my heart broken more times that I can count. So many times that when I look at the mirror now, I can nearly see the scars on my soul as if they pucker and shimmer on my skin.
I got what I wanted, what I begged for a hundred times and realized that most of the time the things we want and the things we need are vastly different. I got things I never knew I wanted and I had to learn how to go on when they were snatched from me.
I had so much fun. I laughed until two in the morning and danced in driveways doused in silver moonlight. I made last minute trips and smiled until my face ached and felt so much joy that my body shook and tears came to my eyes. I had the time of my life.
I met new friends and faced new fears and I fought for everything I have. I fought for the goodness, I fought to exist, I fought for better than I had before.
2010 started in neon colors and froze in the middle, dark and bleak and empty and finally thawed out into gentle, tentative pastels. It took a girl and burned her down until her bones were all that remained and slowly formed a new skin on her. The last decade created a phoenix and I'm so grateful for all of it. The pain, the joy, the long days and the longer nights; it helped me find myself.
And yet, when I look forward to 2020 I can't help but silently hope that the next ten years are gentler to me than the last have been. I can't help but to hope for a few more quiet days, a little less heartache, a little more sunshine.
As for the last twelve months, the last ten years, I could spend a dozen lifetimes coming up with "what-if"s and "if I could do it over"s but it's over now. The last ten years made me who I am and while it was long and hard it was also magnificent and beautiful. It was my life.
I can't imagine what the next 10 years have in store for me, but I'll go in knowing that I'm stronger than I was before and that no matter what comes, I was created to live this exact life that I have and that's exactly what I'm going to do.
Until next year <3
-M
