First Year Anniversary: beyond sunshine and rainbows!

One year on a strange land, starting from zero and facing anything and everything that came my way. Here I am today, celebrating my first year anniversary in Canada. I am nothing but proud of myself for making it this far. This year alone has given me a plethora of opportunities to grow in every way. It made sure to give me time and challenges to work on myself. More like forced me to work on my mental, physical, emotional and somewhat spiritual health. A year truly changes a lot about you and around you. This past year has been a prime example of it for me. Moving away was the biggest decision that I could’ve taken and I’m glad that I did. I have not appreciated myself enough for the courage I had in me to do this. This truly was one of the best year of my life so far and also, the loneliest one.

As far as I can remember I have had trouble sitting alone with myself. Sitting in a void, doing nothing and without any distractions at all. Ever since moving, Universe has given me big doses of things that I really needed to finally learn and improve. I was made to sit and pay attention to what was in my head. Previously, somehow I always escaped being alone by finding a distraction, but there was no escape this time. I don’t think I have ever been so alone where there was no one to turn to, no one to talk to and tell what was in my head. It was just me. The conversations were hard, there were long nights filled with tears, days where I genuinely had no energy to leave bed but I had to. No other option than to do what needed to be done, and most of it was to stay with myself, console, find little courage every day and carry on.

I have gone weeks without seeing and talking to another human being. The person I have seen and talked to most was my therapist. Therapy day was a shinning bright day in my dark cold life. All the unsaid things, all unexpressed emotions, all shameful confessions. Conversations that enabled me to think and ask questions from myself, communicate and figure out a lot that I was afraid to even think of. Those sessions are partly a reason I am where I am today. They are a reason I survived some storms and did not act on what I may have been contemplating. The need to talk is a big one, I hope everyone realizes that.

Distance play a huge role in shaping relationships – I’m a big believer in this now. So many of my ideas and assumptions were revealed before me with their truths. I had a perception of having ‘many’ friends, it did not take a long when it hit me that I actually don’t. As of right now, top of my head, I can count two. Two best friends that I know I can rely on. With most others, I think I have had more expectations from them than I should have. But at the same time, I will also confess, that I have not been a good friend to many either. I never fulfilled many expectations either and I was not always good enough.

Some of you know that I have loved writing for the longest time. It was a way for me to express myself and put things out of my head regardless of what they were. I often used analogies and I like to believe that I had some good ones! Not very long ago I actually quit writing. I started believing that anything I had to say was not worth listening to, responding to or even getting an acknowledgement. My belief became that my very existence did not need a recognition and that it really does not matter what I am and what I had to say. I seized to exist not only for others but for myself as well. This was perhaps the rock bottom for me and getting back up from there was a lot of effort in itself. This was possibly the result of falling back on people and not relying on myself. We all know that putting faith and trust in someone other than yourself will cost you a lot, what I did not know was that it will cost me a lot of myself, a part of my sanity, and most of what I was and what I believed in.

Am I happy? I don’t know. I’m not sure what the emotion exactly is anymore. I have had really bad days followed by gatherings where I was smiling and chatting while I could physically feel pain in my chest since I was deeply hurting. It was required of me to behave a certain way, so I mastered concealing how I am actually feeling. So if I am actually happy, I don’t know. I have lost the feeling of this emotion somewhere, however I’m content. I’m content with the life I have, with all the work I’m putting in myself, and also with all that I have today and all that I have lost. I’m sure of the fact that there is a lot more coming for me, because I deserve it and I work for it.