goodnight trouble
it’s been a year.
my years tend to clatter to an exhausted finish, unruly and bristling with loose ends. my prayer for the next one usually goes something like, “God, please let this year be better.” but for once, at the end of a year, the feeling of utter exhaustion is missing. parts of this year were hell, and parts of it were glory, which is the usual mix, really, each so intense in its part that taking stock of a year overall can be difficult: but I feel strangely and newly happy in my skin right now. I don’t know what it is - the confidence boost of having managed to get a job even if it only lasted a few months, the ways I’ve learnt in the last year to better cope with and understand my mental illness, the ways I’ve become more confident and more fully and widely myself. I feel like I’m in a better place than I used to be. (ridiculously, I think writing Marwick has a fair amount to do with this - I’ve always struggled with actually writing the stories in my head, and suddenly this entire trilogy, with a plotted first book and fairly clear arc for the second two, topples headlong into my lap and I’m still so ridiculously in love with it and getting to play with tropes I love and address things I’ve always wanted to address and write the kinds of characters I’ve always wished someone would write, and I feel like I’m doing something, maybe I’m turning into a Real Writer instead of a daydreamy girl with a lot of good ideas. I am creating something, and it’s a big something, and it’s a something I’m proud of. I can hang my hat on that, at least.) I have brilliant, beautiful people around me to love and, astonishingly, be loved by, and I know how to scrape bits of marvel out of the world if I have to.
so here’s to the old year - the year I cut off my hair, learned how to drink, composed a trilogy, travelled by bus and train and aeroplane to Philadelphia and Alaska and back again without accidentally dying, survived three months without medication, read a lot of good books and saw a lot of good films and had my heart broken by a lot of mostly good television, had a few picnics, was part of an impromptu band, recorded an EP, worked hard at a job, became closer to so many dear people, came another step closer to understand how I work, wore a lot of hats, explored an abandoned barracks, danced a few times, made some stuff I feel good about.
maybe 2012 will finally be the year I get it together. for once, this seems like more than a worn-out unlikely hope. goodnight, trouble.