It was my Year

The previous year, when I sit and ruminate over the months that were, although three hundred and sixty-five days, from a spring spent by the beach and upon the mountains to a pandemic summer, to rains that never ended until December, save some days of desert sun, and a white Christmas spent with everyone I love in my tiny hometown, seem like a blur. Did I really live through the previous year? Did it really occur? The answer seems an impossible no at some moments while at other moments it does seem like a plausible, a possible and a very real yes.

Twenty twenty-one was a year, a year that changed so many things, that changed the course of my life, that effectively changed me and here I am, happier, at peace, content and travelling on that yellow brick road discovering myself, unearthing the many emotions, letting go of so many little pebbles, leaving them aside on the road where they rightfully belong and I walk yonder, to a happier place, at peace, a sense of settlement clinging onto me. Twenty twenty-one had me sinking to the deepest trenches of earth to, later, soar high, towards the stars shining bright and here I stand amazed, smiling at the journey, at the discovery. Little did I know at the beginning of the year that the months that would eventually unfold would bring about a whale of changes, and glad I am that they did.

Remarkable would be the single word, were I to describe the year that was. The most difficult thing, and yet the easiest later, perhaps, is to own up, to accept oneself, be aware of one’s faults, not essentially faults but one’s idiosyncrasies, so I have learnt. The ‘death-mask’, the mask of pretence that I faultlessly wore was not easy to let go, it was not easy to be truthful, to be unabashedly myself, to not conveniently don that mask from my closet of behaviour, masks which I would change from person to person. But after months of debating, wondering, pondering, talking, breaking down, fighting, talking with my partner, I was able to wear the one face that truthfully belongs to me. It was easy, it truly was, yet my inhibitions, my fears, complications that I had created inside the realms of my head prevented me from being me. It is a work in progress, but I have someone to prop me when I falter, to tell me when I deviate, and I know there is this someone walking along with me upon that yellow brick road.

Yes, twenty twenty-one was when I started learning to be happily vulnerable, to be comically stupid, to take that leap of faith and eventually I discovered this very someone, my partner, who had been patiently waiting for me to be myself, confident that I would eventually find myself. No, it was not a path, strewn with rose petals and velvety nor was it entirely difficult to tread upon. Your experiences and thoughts have the power to change any circumstance is what I have learnt, and these are lessons that I would not have ever discovered that it not been for my partner. The previous year I moved in with my partner to our place, a place where we ‘make the rules’, a home that we are building every day, settling into our settlement. It was effortless and yet I had made it ah so difficult, stuck that I was with my notions, trapped that I was in a zone I had christened comfortable. But now we are in our home.

The previous year was when I, in a way, came out to my family, was sweetly surprised at my mother’s understanding, having always undermined her depth of emotions; it was a year when I re-bonded, or must I say, I bonded with my sister, my mother after years of holding onto, with all my might, the resentment, the anger that I harboured and an anger that only made my living maddening. It was the year when I lost some friends, but also a year when I gained some compatriots trotting upon a similar path of self-discovery, guiding one another made possible through a session I initially mocked; it was a year when I let go of the many loose ends, a year when I started taking charge, a year when I forgave myself, a year when I commenced owing up, to being truthful and aligning my thoughts with my words, and my actions with my words. Yes, it was a year of lockdowns but it was also a year when the locks inside my head came crashing down, and may be, just maybe, like I had always pondered and wished for, it was my year.

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