38: Begin, Again
New year, new beginnings or so the saying goes.
But it's only four days into 2023 and I am already exhausted. I manage to grumble this sentence out loud, as I sink into bed at midnight, and even the elucidation of these words, the effort involved in uttering them out loud feels like a boulder weighing me down.
But then my mind points out to me that it's not like the resetting of the year, the turning of the page, the hanging up of a new calendar or any of it, resets my bones.
They’re still at Year 2022+4days, or Year2020+734days or heck in my case perhaps I’m still at 0+11537 days; carrying around the baggage of unsaid things, of unintended actions, of plans that went awry.
And so I’ve been thinking about the things I’ve carried into this year with me, intentionally or otherwise.
In one of the last therapy sessions for the year, my therapist remarked, “Misery comes from resistance”, as I was talking about some of the things that had left me feeling rather miserable.
If I have to bluntly look at the last two years of my life, I find so much resistance wrapped tightly around my veins; I smell it in the sweat seeping off my pores; I hear it thudding away beneath my heart. It keeps me up at night as it traverses the length of my body searching for a new corner to settle into. It drills into my bones every time I come across an unknown fork in the road, every time life throws a curveball at me.
Unwittingly, unknowingly I’ve begun to resist everything and as I pay attention, I find that I am able to make space for my mind if I just stop resisting the little things.
A new study has linked perfectionism to depressive tendencies, and while societal structures applaud and encourage perfectionism, making us want to strive to it, it comes at great cost, a cost society is silently bearing and rather unwilling to openly face.
As someone who has always strived towards that insane idea of being a perfectionist, a couple of years ago I started to find myself being disappointed, and often miserable. It hasn’t been easy, but I am trying to let go, to stop resisting being imperfect.
This perfectionist slant makes what I really want to do challenging; for I’m never truly done writing. I’m addicted to editing it, to trying to make it perfect, and the acceptance I so desperately need is floating across a bridge in a parallel universe, far far away.
There’s always a word to change, a phrase to add, a sentence to tweak. I want to go back to the moment before I hit Publish on my Love Vs Marriage post and add a tongue-in-cheek reference to F1. Unnecessary, but it’s been eating away at me.
A couple of days after I published that post, I came across a scene in an episode in the fifth season of Madam Secretary, where Dr. Henry McCord quotes Joseph Campbell who said that marriage isn’t a love affair, it’s an ordeal.
In the fifth season of The Crown, Prince Philip is speaking to Penny Knatchbull about his marriage, and specifically how appealing it was to him that it would be a lifelong commitment, bringing some much needed stability after his “unsettled, nomadic childhood”. However he adds,
“It doesn’t take into account the one thing human beings do the minute they make a commitment to a life together - grow in separate directions.”
And I wish I had seen these episodes before I published that newsletter, and I wish I had read all of the hundred things that I need to read before I had written what I had to. For someone who is so impatient all of the time, I desperately wish I would be more patient before I hit that damn publish button.
But hesitating, and giving pause is problematic. Because I end up cross questioning every single word I’ve written, being judge, jury and executioner to its presence, weighing in how necessary it is, deeming it ridiculous and as punishment locking myself away.
I don’t know how to let go of that perfectionism, but I’m trying.
And so at the start of this year, I’m trying to believe that I don’t have to have a perfect year, or week, or even day. And I hope that 51 weeks later, I’m able to accept the kind of year I’ve had, for what it is.
Charlie Mackesy’s wisdom will hopefully remain in my mind, especially these words from The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse -
“The greatest illusion”, said the mole, “is that life should be perfect.”
Moments from 2022 that have strayed into 2023:
After a particularly important golf game, my husband when describing the experience told me, “This round of golf has brought out the best in me but also the worst in me.” Life invariably tends to work like that; the best often intermingling with the worst and only the passage of time lending you enough perspective to detangle the two, and actually ascertain what the good was, and what the bad was.
Do they call extroverts social butterflies because the introverts mirror caterpillars cosy in their cocoons? Does this mean that at some point in my life, I too will emerge with my spotted wings? I wondered this as I hid away at large gatherings in the last week of December, observing the extroverts charm the crowds and flit from group to group as I remained in the comfort of my corner.
As I watched the FIFA final with a group of friends, I was amused by how differently we all responded to the tension that gripped us after the 80th minute. But the way someone watches a sport can be a pretty good indicator of who they are as a person and how they will respond to stress in life. Do they let their anxiety take over and manifest it across the room; do they give in to superstition and refuse to budge; are they able to find it somewhere in themselves to crack a joke at the mercy of their beloved team; are they able to cheer on when the team they aren’t supporting does something incredible?
Vulnerability sparks vulnerability. As I’ve spent time around unfamiliar people, struggling not to give in to my anxiety, I’ve found that being honest about it, simply telling them I’m terrified helps. It gets my awkwardness out of the way, and sometimes it gladly leads to a conversation that’s actually rooted in the reality of things as they find they can tell me about their fears too. Being more vulnerable by being more honest is something I want to remember to do, everyday.
What have you carried into 2023 with you? What has remained simmering in the depths of your heart from 2022? Is it weightless, feather-like, lending you buoyancy?
Or does it feel like a thousand flaming arrows piercing through your soul setting it ablaze? Do you truly want to hold on to it and let it stride beside you?