As the year and decade comes to a close, it feels as though I began 2019 as I am now ending.

A little bitter, a little sad, a little nostalgic, and a little alone. Okay, a lot alone.

At least I feel that way more these days. This year began with a dramatic entry, friendships crumbled and rebuilt only to crumble again. Unsturdy foundations broke down time and time again.

The ones I built between my beliefs and myself. And the ones with those I thought would stay with me this year.

I have resisted a lot this year. Probably not unlike most years. But, this year, the resistance spoke to me in every unmet promise by a romantic pursuit, in every crumbling first world problem of car problems and unforeseen financial expenditures.

Unstable, always feeling just a little unstable.

This was my constant. Shaky ground beneath my feet that could go at any moment. Clients. Pay. Friendships. Romance. Peace. Life plans. Visions. Dreams. Hopes.

I began this year not hoping for much. And, maybe in that, there was my demise. I have expected a lot from myself, but not a lot from life. I expect to be single indefinitely, to be living with roommates, to be working for someone else, for every now and again needing a little support from my parents, for people letting me down, for me letting me down, for my heart’s desire to go unmet. These are perhaps the pointers to where I have lost some faith.

So, maybe I’m a pessimist trying hard to be an optimist. Maybe, I’m neither. Maybe, I’m just trying my damnedest to stay in the middle of the road. To stay stable. To stay centered. To stay calm.

To not get hijacked back into the haunted house of my past. The rejections. The abandonments. The letdowns. The mistakes. The unlived dreams.

I am 28, going on 50, not quite an adult, but too adult some days.

I never wanted to grow up. Never wanted to be responsible for my own life.

It’s terrifying knowing each day that you, and only you are making this life what you choose to make of it. You are the common denominator this past year, this past decade.

I have seen versions of myself change and morph from 2009 to the ending of 2019 that I can’t even begin to fathom, but needless to say there is still much growth, unchartered territory to be sought after.

And, yet, my apathy grows. My escapism distracts. My self pity deepens some days.

Life is not optional. But, living it is.

Are we simply still surviving our past over and over again? Reliving it time and time again.

There is weird comfort in that darkness. Less comfort than if we dared to believe differently perhaps.

We don’t get to choose our past, anymore than we get to choose our future. We can choose how we perceive it, that is truly all.

My perception has always been a little bit blackened, clouded over light of myself and my outer conditions. Bring on the self judgment and the self loathing and you got yourself the perfect recipe for a life bent on unchanging circumstance and isolation.

Part of me sees this. Most of me judges it. A deeper part wants me to see that suffering is optional.

Feel. Observe. Feel. Observe. But not too much. Which one is it? Please do tell me!

Am I the feeler? Am I the observer? Am I the detached one? Just far enough away from my experience at all times, or too far in to do anything about it.

2019. You showed me myself. My whole self. My whole spectrum of feeling. Not much unlike other years. But this year deepened into the trajectory of where I have been and god knows some days where I am going.

We can begin and end this year maybe feeling lost still. Maybe, still feeling broken. A little. Or a lot. Maybe, still replaying broken reals of memories. Because perhaps, we haven’t fully integrated.

Perhaps, they keep replaying, because we haven’t allowed ourselves to integrate. To alchemize our pain. To relinquish our pain.

Integration is the biggest piece of the puzzle we all keep missing. Keep searching for new experiences to teach us. New thrills to dramatize our life. Any new drug to sooth us. Any old vice to remind us.

We resist what we persistently refuse to integrate.

We resist what we persistently refuse to embrace.

Not as truth of all that we are. Just enough to know that our love, some love bigger than our tiny, albeit miraculous human hearts can hold us steady. Hold us steady in unstable times.

We may have broken down, broken open, broken pieces of ourselves still unstitched back together. So, with only a few weeks left, but really an eternity to get it right, let’s stitch ourselves a warmer blanket this year, warmer, gentler eyes and ears to witness ourselves.

Even when we resist pain, resist going back, moving forward, may we acknowledge these parts of us unintegrated, searching for a home.

Make that home, you.

How will you make your home? Cold and stale of love resembling the one of our conditioned pre-set model?

Or, perhaps a warmer one. Perhaps, a home full with flowers to yourself for no reason at all. Perhaps a home full of less judgment for your growing awareness, coupled with your shadow vying for integration. Perhaps, a home all to your own. But, a door, a window, to see out of, and ask yourself who and what is deserving of your space, to enter, to spend time in your heart with. You didn’t always get to choose, but you can start choosing now.

Home is calling to us this next year. Where do we belong? Where do we feel safe? How can we feel safe and at home more in our own body and spirit?

May we seek to resist ourselves or our own love no longer. May we withhold no longer the care we need to thrive.

And, in that may we bring healing and medicine to the world outside the four walls of our own home.