New Year New Me....no New Year New Beginnings

New Year New Me

New Year`s Resolutions

All malarkey!!!


Linked into a lot of common malarkey. This idea that can get so ingrained in us once I move here, quit this job, or the new year begins this and that will change. I will change. We all want to change...at least something. Whether within us, what's around us, or the world, in general, it`s a common human desire as is the fear of it. While they do have an effect, a profound one actually. The new year can have this strong energy to it, the feelings of change and a clean state coming over you like a wave. While we may know that year`s our made for record-keeping (calendar years) but there`s this psychological phenomenon with the turn of one. This hyped-up feeling of a new chapter turning, new stories to be written.

The environment is crucial to all creatures, a species in the wrong environment can not survive. The same can be said from a mental and emotional lense, if you're depressed and anxious in an environment that keeps pushing you down you may never be able to find your way back up.

The trouble here comes on many levels, these types of changes or any substantial change for that matter can be hard and trying. Most never actually stick to them and even if you do sometimes they can only be half of the equation. A new year or a new place can be a great start going forward but it doesn`t make a new you nothing can....other then you.

The idea that resolutions or moving cities after a break up is built upon is that of a band-aid. Short-form fixes that may help heal or cover a wound but won`t repair anything on a fundamental level. That`s a longer less marketable less shareable process. The band-aid can be a good starting point but you have to be ready for the journey.

That, ladies and gentle creatures is where I find myself. In the middle of this great big road I`ve been walking a while but at the start of a whole new hill. Hopefull for its beauty but fearful that it may have none. Anyone who`s been listening to me whine and ramble here for a while, or who scrolls back down through this blog can see I talk about making changes and trying to walk new paths a lot. Remember that week I went without soda? Yeah....that was fun....I type with a box of cans and a six-pack of bottles bought for tonight at my feet. It`s not that I don`t make progress, I do, two steps forward and one back but it`s made. For everything, I mess up like college, or photography I take another good step like exhibiting my photos or landing my current job. It just never seems like enough for me and my crippling perfectionist brain. Nothing would be better than imperfection it screams at me illogically. That`s why the photos never got finished and why nothing ever gets written.

As someone who masochistically enjoys psychoanalyzing themselves, I think it has a lot to do with feeling like I`m starting behind a lot of other people. From being tired of feeling like I missed out on normal childhood things, things that defined and built people, and things that taught them how...to be. A world that I don`t get, one that I don`t always function great in. I want it all now, to be there right away because I`m afraid...that maybe I really can`t fucntoin...that I`m overestimating myself... I`m afraid that I`ll never get there.

I do think I`m making progress though, getting to where I need to be no matter what I tell myself. Slow and steady wins the race, there`s no one recipe to life as much as the white pickets that dominate society would love to cram those ideas down our throats. I feel like I`m getting there to where I have enough stable ground under my feet, that I`ve begun to understand enough to really start some new and old beginnings. Shaking off my years of being numb and repressed, awakening ready to walk a little further on my journey.
There are many environmental factors, that affect me atm but none of them are things I can change easily. I think it`s for the best though. My job is certainly a...roller coaster...some days are good even builds my confidence. Others....tear it down...hard. I`m not sure what it is about this month maybe there`s too much existential on my mind but it seems to be full of the later. I`m just trying to survive it honestly, it takes its toll and if I`m there for too long. That might be a high one. I do think I needed it though, I needed to build that foundation. The first seeds of independence for my sheltered abused ass.

A seed of independence that does need to be grown, my relationship with my mother is a complex one. I love her, of course, she`s my mother and being the single mother for a special needs child...she`s sacrificed a lot. I love and appreciate her for that and were both all the other has ever really had. The good doesn`t negate the more toxic and controlling sides to her though. The homophobia, the hatred towards mental health, the dehumanizing attitude towards ASD or ADHD, and her denial and refusal of her own issues or that I have any myself. It still feels...guilty...the idea of leaving her...I know what causes her issues...she could get help for them....but she refuses to....and at a certain point...that`s her choice. I am working on getting help, working on myself, and being better. At some point...I`ll have to pull back at least a little or I might drown.
Keywords at some point, the environmental changes are always the exciting ones but there not always the easy ones. They're also not the only essential ones. I grew up in a very toxic PA backwater that hadn`t been touched by the outside world for years. No cell reception and when they got dial-up there it was mind-blowing. Fun early years there being declared living in sin by the local church, death threats left on our door, and other hillbilly weirdness. When my stepfather passed we moved away from there and let me tell you....best dam thing we had ever done. We both would`ve died in that place. However, when we came here we thought it would change everything had these visions of the people we would become....that we didn`t. We tried started with therapy. Mother gave that up quick and I got pressured into doing the same. I quickly went back to being numb and she disliked her diagnosis and flew off the handle. We had changed our environment to our benefit but not ourselves. That`s what I`m starting with this time, working with a narrative therapist on the next chapter in my life. Trying to take little steps towards new beginnings, working within myself as well as outside of it.

The new year and decade has been a boon for that. Maybe it`s just being young and this being my first turn of the decade as an adult, maybe it`s how transitional 2019 felt, maybe it`s the futuristic way 2020 seems, maybe it`s the impending war, but for whatever reasons 2020 just feels very transformative in nature. Like I said above though you can`t ride this wave alone but I`ve been on this path for a while. Maybe not successfully as my many blog posts will tell you but even in those last days of December where I may have felt as I wasn`t making the steps I wanted to I still rearranged my room, made physical order representing the order I want to make in my life and other steps like that. The new year energy boosted that, hasn`t been exactly on-topic but it`s been coming and as much I bend myself out of shape over everything in my core I know that`s all I can really ask for.

This is the first of three years until my mother's predicted rapture.

May the first of the doomsday years be a year of beginnings and may January be a month of little beginnings old and new.