I’ll be honest. Initially, I wanted to write a blog post titled, “F*ck You, 2020”. I got about halfway through it, and then I got stuck. The truth is, I didn’t really have a lot to say that fit the narrative. This year has been the worst of my life to date.
Like many others, I have experienced isolation, loss, and uncertainty. Fortunately, given some time to reflect, I realized that each of these negative experiences had a lesson to offer (or sometimes several). Looking back on this year with a negative lens would mean that it wins, 2020 wins. I’ll be damned if I let that happen. So, as way to say “f*ck you” to the worst year of my life, I’m going to celebrate all that I have gained. (If you don’t want to read the whole post, I suggest skipping to #9.)
1. Take time to get to know yourself.
Getting to know myself was a scary process, and not one that was willingly endeavoured upon. Before, when there were outside distractions, it was easy to keep my focus outward to prevent from turning inward. However, when you’re your own sole source of company, as I was during the first lockdown, you don’t have much of a choice. Getting to know myself was scary mostly because I was unsure of what I would find. At the time of the first lockdown, I wouldn’t say that I completely loved myself. Sure, I liked myself well enough, and there were parts of me that I loved… but it was a conditional, transient kind of love. (Some would probably argue that is not love at all.) The amount and extent of that love differed daily based on what I had accomplished, how I felt about myself that moment, and how I perceived others to feel about me.
I was right to be nervous; I could have never expected what I found through my introspections. After laying it [me] all out on the table, I was shocked to find that for every flaw I had, there was a complementary objective strength. I also found that most flaws that I had were within my ability to change. I could learn to love my body, I could spend more time on school, I could become better at exercising self-compassion. Of course, there were and always will be things about myself that I would like to change, but simply can’t. Luckily for me, accepting these flaws counted as my first step towards being more self-compassionate.
What I realized after some self-examination, was who I am is made up of both the good and the bad. Buddhism believes in the duality of the universe, that there is a balance between good and evil. I think that humans are the same. There is a balance in all of us. No one is free from flaws, and no one is devoid of strengths. Liberation can be found by accepting this about ourselves and the people around us.
I am not all good or all bad, I simply am.
2. Know your worth and don’t settle for any less.
Once I knew myself, the next step was learning my worth. I will admit, after going through the process of getting to know myself this was especially challenging. I had just laid bare all of my flaws and insecurities, and now I was attempting to reaffirm my worth. Pfft. Crazy.
Previously, I had defined my worth by my productivity. The more I could accomplish, the more worthy that I was. The less that I accomplished, the less worthy that I was. I tied myself to my mistakes, believing that failure made me less deserving. Following days that I did not do “enough” I was overridden by feelings of shame and self-doubt that left me feeling unstable for weeks. I would avoid trying new things for fear of failure and the consequent emotional retributions. When I did fail, it felt as though the world had stopped rotating and everyone had fixated their eyes on me.
What helped me most when thinking about worth was thinking about it in an external context. I have always believed that every person has value, regardless of who they are or what they stand for. Whether they’re a billionaire, a struggling student or a stranger living on the street, on a fundamental level I have always known that everyone is deserving of love and happiness. I am not sure exactly where I learned this philosophy, but it is one that guides much of what I do on a day-to-day basis. It seemed hypocritical to see this intrinsic worth in others, but fail to see it in myself.
Worth is intrinsic; that is something that I believed about strangers, but (ironically) failed to believe about myself. It is not something you have to earn; it is not transactional. Worth is not dependent on who you are, what you look like, or what you accomplish. It simply is. I finally learned to take my core belief about others and apply it to myself. It took some time, but through examining and challenging destructive thought patterns, the way that I saw myself began to change. One morning a few weeks after beginning this transition, I looked at myself in the mirror. I met my own eyes, and as if seeing myself for the first time, I saw staring back at me a young woman deserving of love and affection.
3. Be your own source of certainty.
During the first lockdown, one of the biggest challenges that I faced was learning to accept uncertainty. The world was changing at a shocking pace. Things and people that I once viewed as a source of stability were no longer there. Just as a break-up set me off-balance, society was flipped upside down. I struggled to regain my footing on unsteady ground.
In times of stress or uncertainty, I have had a bad habit of trying to control my environment (or the people around me). When I couldn’t control the actual situation, I would exert control over other, unrelated things or situations. It’s a natural evolutionary response that I think many are prone to. With control comes the ability to anticipate, the ability to survive, the privilege of feeling secure. It makes sense. We are hard-wired for survival and exerting control can offer the illusion of safety.
This circumstance was different though; there was nothing to cling to, nothing to control. Everything that I had become accustomed to was different. School, work, my personal life–everything was changing at such a rapid pace and in such an unpredictable way. I no longer had a partner to lean on for support, and my family was across the country. Not only was I facing a world of uncertainty, but it felt like I was facing it alone.
During a chat with my mentor and nutrition coach, she suggested something novel. “What if you were your own source of certainty?”
This really got me thinking. What if I was my own source of certainty? Was that even possible? My thoughts and feelings about this have evolved over the past couple of months, but here is the answer that seems most correct to me (for now).
Yes, you can be your own source of certainty. The key to this is deriving certainty from change, both within and outside of yourself. Life was meant to be dynamic. The world is everchanging and ever-evolving; so are people. Change is happening at such a rapid pace that often we fail to notice the transitions. The only thing that is unwaveringly certain about life is that change will happen. The rest of it, no one can truly anticipate or predict. When it came to deriving certainty from myself, I had to come to the realization that even though who I was changed with every experience, I would always be me.
4. There is a time to hold on, and a time to let go. Know the difference.
I have tried my best to write this as a natural succession of events. First I got to know myself, then I believed in my worth, then I learned to act as my own source of certainty. What logically followed was completing actions that affirmed my worth, with the knowledge that I would make it through the consequences.
The aforementioned break-up was not a clean one. It was messy, complicated and tough to navigate from both sides. We tried several times to be friends. We had been through harder transitions, and we didn’t want to miss out on having each other around. However, the holding turned into clinging, with both of us grasping at a mirage of what used to be. All the good things about our relationship disappeared along with the romance. The things that I loved were all gone. There were no more sweet texts, no more stolen moments, all that was left was the indescribable bond and a sense of intimate familiarity.
At a time when everything felt new and uncertain, I held tightly to this sense of familiarity. He knew who I was in my entirety. He had seen my good, my bad and my downright ugly. He knew about my past, and my dreams for the future. He was my person, and it was hard to let that go even though it had already been lost.
Either way, our relationship had progressed to a point at which it was toxic for both of us. We loved each other, but we were unable to navigate the grey area that was our friendship. There were arguments had, unkind words said, and feelings irrevocably hurt. We could not go back, and in moving forward we had hit a brick wall. It was time to say goodbye.
When talking about the situation with my roommate’s boyfriend, Shiv, he posed an interesting question: “Does he make your life better, does he help you be a better version of yourself?”
Immediately I knew that the answer was no. Over several months following that conversation, I began the process of letting go. I started to see new people (from a distance, of course), I removed him from my social media, and finally, I explicitly stated my intentions of a clean break. We exchanged our things and said farewell. He thinks that we will reconnect years into the future, I’m not so sure. I realized that our relationship, while at one time pertinent to my personal growth, was now bringing me down. I think our time has come and gone.
I have learned to trust that people come into your life to serve a purpose or teach you a lesson. Sometimes their presence is transient, and that’s okay. I have since taken the question Shiv asked me and applied it to other situations. Does this friendship serve me? Is this habit conducive to my personal growth? Does this job improve my life?
I am learning to hold on to the people and things that honour my worthiness, and to let go of the ones that don’t. I’m not yet wise enough to consistently know the difference, but I will get there with time. Letting go has been, and will always be, a painful process. But I realize now that this discomfort is akin to growing pains, just psychological instead of physical.
5. Support sometimes comes from the most unlikely of people.
And sometimes, the people you expect to support you fail to do so in the way that you need.
This year I suffered a traumatic loss. I said goodbye to one of the most important people in my life, my little sister Raegan. I have lost people before–family friends, grandparents, coworkers–but losing them felt nothing like this. This loss I felt in my soul, in the deepest core of my being. Raegan was responsible for so much of who I am today, and losing her felt like losing a part of myself.
I was shocked and surprised by others’ reactions to my loss. A universal truth that I discovered: most people have no idea how to deal with grief. People’s first instinct seems to be to fix. Everyone around me wanted me to feel better, to feel whole again. They endeavoured to piece me back together in multitudinous unconstructive ways. Some told me to find the bright side. Some reassured me that everything happened for a reason. Some told me that I needed to “get over it”. One person even suggested that in the future, I become more withdrawn from my emotions to make future losses more tolerable. They literally told me to feel less as a means of self-protection. These things came from people who love me, and whom I love in return.
Most of the people I love failed to show up for me in the way that I needed, but I found my support in other (sometimes unexpected) places. I reconnected with a friend from high school who also attended the funeral arrangements. He quite literally held me together and made a safe space for me to mourn amongst his family. We had not spoken to each other in at least four years, and yet he asked nothing in return for his kindness and compassion.
My friends and coaches, Nicola and Sara, intentionally made space for me to grieve. Although our relationship is primarily based on nutrition and exercise, they stressed the importance of making space for myself and exercising self-compassion. They forgave me for dropping the ball on my pursuits, and consequently, led the way to me forgiving myself for the same things.
My best friend/roommate is no stranger to the dark. She has gone through her own battles, and I have occasionally ventured down into the darkness to sit with her. This time, she ventured into the abyss to sit with me. Sometimes that mere presence is all you need.
My cousin, Ange, waited a few days to reach out. She wanted to respect my space for grieving. When she did text me, she said, “Whatever you’re feeling, whenever you’re feeling it, is okay.” In saying that, she allowed me to exercise self-compassion and to make space for my own healing. She didn’t prescribe my emotions or minimize my loss. She simply gave me permission to feel what I was feeling, and to move through it rather than past it.
Another best friend of mine, who had suffered a similar, but even more profound loss, showed me kindness in the form of honesty. He held me as I cried, and said, “I’m sorry, this fucking sucks. The pain doesn’t go away, you just learn to live with it.” His candidness was a breath of fresh air in a world full of people telling me that it would get better. I knew that it wouldn’t, and having someone stand in solidarity with me and my experience of grief brought me great comfort.
Someone else, a near stranger, gave me even more support than I think they know. We met only a month before Raegan passed, and so they were getting to know me as the worst version of myself. Instead of deciding that it was not their problem, and walking away, they stayed and they made space. They asked the hard questions and listened to the answers. In doing so, they gave me a sense of safety and support that allowed me to explore my grief more fully. I was never made to feel like less of a person or a burden, I was simply cared about. The kindness of this person extended far beyond what I could have ever expected and has been essential to my healing process.
It has been three months since I have experienced this loss, and few people have taken the time to check-in. The five I described above are the ones who typically do, and yet still, are the people I expect it from the least. Most people think that I am fine, want to believe that I am fine, and so go on with their day-to-day without a second thought. These people though, they hit pause, and they devote their valuable time and energy to support me in whatever way I need. Words will never be able to describe the gratitude that I feel towards these individuals.
It was important for me to couple these realizations with outward compassion. Yes, many people failed to show up for me in the way that I needed to. That being said, their failure to show up did not define them as a “bad friend” or a “bad person”. The actions of others are not always reflective of who they are, sometimes just what they are going through. Everyone is dealing with something, and in order to protect their own emotional boundaries some people were unable to be there for me. In contrast, some people were going through their own shit and still managed to show up for me.
All of this is to say, sometimes support comes from unlikely places, and the people you expect to support you may disappoint you. One day down the road, the roles will be reversed. I will be the giver of support, and someone I love (or barely know) will be the one in need. I hope that I can show-up to the same degree that people have shown up for me. The best way for me to display my appreciation is by paying it forward.
As an aside, if someone you know is grieving, there is no “right thing to say”. Sometimes the best thing to say is nothing at all, and to give of yourself in other ways–your time, your love, your compassion. A loss can’t be fixed, there is no remedy for death. It is a part of life, both for the individual who was lost and the people who mourn them. The best way through grief is acceptance, not only of the death itself, but of the fact that there is nothing that can be repaired. Only time will heal. The most important way that people supported me was by being present, whether physically or emotionally, and making their presence known. There are some days that I don’t have the capacity to talk, but I appreciate the small reminders that there are ears there to listen, and shoulders to lean on when I need them.
6. Do not be afraid to ask for help in times of need.
Following the loss of Raegan, I have not been doing well. The thing that I have noted most, is that my discomfort makes others extremely uncomfortable. This is not exactly surprising, given the type of person that I strive to be. I am used to being the rock, the dependable one. I am the person that people come to when they need support or someone to listen. I try my best to be a beacon in the storm, a ray of light in the darkness. People are not used to seeing me in a position of need, in a position of vulnerability.
One of my friends was reading The Mask of Masculinity by Lewis Howes. Curious, I downloaded the audiobook and listened to it in the span of about a week. The author describes a number of masks that men wear, all in the name of upholding the construct of toxic masculinity. One of the chapters in the book describes the “invincibility mask”. This persona is one that emulates confidence, stability, and stoicism. A sort of “nothing phases me” kind of attitude. The book was about men and their struggle with navigating masculinity; I didn’t expect to discover anything personally relevant. However, I found myself nodding along, and a distinct feeling of familiarity grew with every page of the chapter that I read. I realized that it wasn’t just men who experienced the compulsion to be unshakeable, it was also me.
This did not exactly come as news to me; it has been an ongoing issue that I sought to address in the early years of my undergraduate education. In high school, I was always “fine”. If I wasn’t, I took an action, goal-oriented approach to solving the problem or distracting myself. I rarely admitted that I wasn’t okay, and if I did it was usually expressed through anger. This was a defense mechanism that I had developed over a decade, better to be angry than to be vulnerable. It wasn’t until I really needed the help that I was forced to realize this façade was destructive more than helpful. With time I eventually dispelled this method of thinking. So, I was surprised when this old habit reared its ugly head.
Since losing Raegan, I have had a hard time asking for help. Most of this is based on a feeling of guilt that accompanies burdening others with my emotions. The reinforcement of this tendency comes when I ask for support and do not receive it. It makes me feel that once again, I am better off depending on myself than leaning on others and falling when they fail to be there.
What I have learned, is that most people will not look for my suffering. As someone who is typically very strong, and historically resilient, people expect me to be okay. Unless I ask for help, no one will know that I need it. The other thing that I have learned is acceptance. Some people will support you in the way that you need, and some won’t. While this experience can be tough and disappointing, it is also enlightening. It is in my darkest moments that I have become attuned to who I can really depend on, who my true friends are.
Overarchingly, the lesson to be learned here is the common cliché, “If you never ask, you’ll never know”. That goes for many things, including actions of support. (Although, I will say that there are some questions that you will simply never want to know the answers to. There’s a wisdom in knowing that.) If I had never asked for support from the people around me, I would have never received as much as I did. It was in being vulnerable that I was bolstered by the strength of others, and in being honest that I received the most love.
7. Check in on the ones you care about.
In my own time of need, I wanted nothing more than for someone to ask, “How are you doing?” “Are you okay?” So that I could answer with an emphatic, “No, I’m really not.” But only a few people obliged this desire.
As much as asking for help is an important skill to learn, the offering of help is just as important–if not more so. I am not the only one who struggles with seeking assistance, or the only one who fears burdening those around them. I am one of many. In fact, by surrounding myself with like-minded people, I have surrounded myself with people just like this. People do a great job of putting on a brave face, and moving through life without a misstep. That being said, everyone is going through something, and the way one carries themselves is not always indicative of the severity of what they are feeling.
For me, the act of checking-in is momentous. The mere offering of support, even if it is not taken advantage of, is enough to bring comfort. Even if nothing seems overtly wrong, everyone has the potential to be struggling in their own way. By offering support, you create a safe space in which that person can express their challenges and take time to heal. That is a gift more invaluable than any material item.
I don’t have much more to say about this except for stressing the fact that support is a bidirectional thing. It is just as important to offer support as it is to ask for it, and if you can do a combination of both your relationships will be better because of it. The world is a bit of a battlefield; we struggle to overcome our individual demons and larger, societal issues. The least that we can do is check in on our fellow soldiers, when and if we are able.
8. Be protective of your heart, but unconditional with your love.
Confusing, I know. It sounds like an oxymoron. The first part seems almost obvious, nearly self-explanatory. Obviously, it is logical to be cautious before giving someone your heart in its entirety. You want to know them at their worst, at their best. You want to make sure that they are deserving and appreciative of the opportunity to possess it, before they have possession of it.
The second part is the one that requires a bit more explanation. I have come to believe that you can give and show love without giving your heart away. Love, to me, is an infinite resource that should be shared with anyone and everyone, best friend or stranger. I have personally shown love through warm meals, smiles and deep compassion and understanding. I have shown this kind of love to people I am in love with–people who have my heart–as well as strangers I wouldn’t know from Adam.
The giving and sharing of love as an infinite, unconditional resource has the power to make the world a better place. Like worthiness, everyone’s right to love is intrinsic and beyond argument. Every single person is deserving of the type of unconditional love that many of us aspire to receive. That love is available not just through romance, but also in the recognition of our undeniable, unifying bond as human beings.
This year, with such a lack of good fortune in circulation, I tried to show love to everyone in the infinite, unconditional way that only dogs seem to have mastered. I have attempted to give love without expecting love in return. I have learned the difference between loving and being in love, and know now that they are not mutually exclusive. My outward practice of love, I hope, will make the lives of those around me better, and inspire others to take on the same practice. In a world so devoid of stability and hope, love seems to be the only clear way forward.
9. Love transcends all barriers.
Losing Raegan was profound, but almost as profound was the amount of kindness and compassion I was shown throughout the funeral arrangements. I attended most of the funeral arrangements by myself and was distantly familiar with only a handful of my fellow attendees. I was nervous to attend for several reasons, one being that I was unsure about how to navigate anticipated cultural boundaries.
Canada has a longstanding history of systemically oppressing and abusing our Indigenous Peoples. When colonization began in North America, Indigenous tribes were exploited, ravaged, and killed by European settlers. This practice of cultural destruction the buying and selling of traditional lands, and the creation of the abysmal residential schooling system. Past wrongdoings have been “recognized” by the Canadian Government, but there has been a complete failure to acknowledge modern issues faced by Indigenous groups as a direct result of previous trauma and continuing systemic inequities. Consequently, there is commonly an existing (and well-substantiated) tension between Indigenous groups and groups of European descent. Southern Alberta, with its large rural and Indigenous populations, is a prime example of this. I was afraid that this cultural tension would make me an unwelcome addition to the funeral arrangements, but I was very wrong.
I stood alone at the One-Spot Cemetery on the Blood Reserve, wind whipping my hair, shaking from both the shock and the cold. I never imagined that I would be there, burying my best friend and little sister, Raegan. My hot tears cooled swiftly as they slid down my cheeks and underneath my mask. I didn’t wipe them away; I wanted to wear my grief in solidarity with my fellow mourners.
Suddenly, I was enveloped in a tight, warm embrace. My knees weakened and all pretenses were abandoned. I leaned in, and my silent tears transitioned into earth-shattering sobs. If it were not for the steadying presence beside me, I would not have been standing upright. After several minutes I regained partial composure and took a step back. My consoler was a stranger. A young girl, deceivingly tall for her age, with emotional intelligence far beyond her years. I thanked her, she gave me a final hug and then went to rejoin her original company.
I think about this young woman often, and occasionally I wonder if she thinks of me too. I wonder if I would have done the same thing for someone else, or if I would be too intimidated by another’s grief to supersede societal boundaries. I wonder if she recognized the substantiality of her action, or if her offering of comfort was entirely instinctual. Either way, what she will likely never realize is the impact her action had on me and those around us. Her demonstration of compassion was humanizing and permissive. In the eyes of others, I was transformed from stranger to friend. Her kindness gave me space and permission to grieve, something I had failed to give myself. Her offering of support opened the door for others, and at once I was surrounded by a community of people who shared my loss. I will never forget this young woman or the way she made me feel less alone in my pain. I can only hope to touch the lives of others in the way that she touched mine.
I am not sure if a cultural barrier ever did exist, or if it was simply something that I feared and anticipated. Either way, my perception of this barrier made the young woman’s actions even more profound. She chose to supersede social and cultural barriers to show me–a complete stranger–love. I want to stress that this was not the first or last time that I experienced this kind of kindness, but it is illustrative of the raw power that love has, should we choose to use it.
10. Tell the people you love that you love them.
I have been told many times, but learned personally this year, that life is a short and winding rollercoaster. Things and people that seem certain are not, the only thing that is certain is the existence of change.
It is a privilege to be able to share love with someone. It means that you have both come together, in your most vulnerable forms, and chosen to accept the other as their whole selves. It is a rare form of connection in a world in which our primary interactions occur between filtered selves, and superficiality is praised. Not only is it a privilege to love someone, but it is a transient experience. Yes, you can commit to loving someone for the rest of your life, but the span of our life is but a blink in the eyes of the universe. Love is rare and it is fleeting, making it all the more important to share it when you feel it.
This year, a changed perspective made life appear even shorter. After losing Raegan, one of the few things that I could take solace in was the knowledge that she knew I loved her. I lost one of the most important people in my life, but she died knowing that she meant that much to me. Even so, I wish that I had told her more. I wish that I had told her, “I love you”, so many times that, in response, all I would get would be an eye roll. I wish that she was able to take my love for granted because she was so confident in its resilience and its constancy. I wish I had told her what an emptiness my life would have, does have, without her. Even after telling her repeatedly how much I cared, and knowing that she knew, I wish I did more to reinforce it.
I am one of the lucky ones. Although I wish I said it more, I know that I said it enough. Some people go through their lives wondering, never knowing if the person they loved knew the extent of what they felt. Between the rarity of shared love, and the transience of life, it has become increasingly important to me to tell, or show, people I love that I love them. I never know when the opportunity to love these people will be taken away, so it is of utmost importance that I take advantage of this opportunity while I can.
11. The only thing we have control over is our own reactions.
The world is wild and crazy place. In the last several months, it hasn’t just felt unpredictable, it has felt out of control. In an effort to protect against this uncertainty, I have tried (and failed) to control where and what I thought I could. Here is a brief summary of the findings of my life experiment.
Things within my control: my reaction
Things outside of my control: everything else
Take these conclusions with a grain of salt. One, they’re my personal experience, and two, my reactions are not inherently within my control, they’re something that I exert control over. Emotions are a physiological response, and it is only in separating myself from my emotions that I am able to view them objectively, and make a decision about how best to move forward.
This year, I have spent so much time wondering and worrying about things that are far beyond my control.
“When will the pandemic end?”
“What will the future look like?”
“What if he doesn’t like me?”
As you can see, my concerns range from some serious big picture stuff to some pretty minute, seemingly inconsequential issues. No matter, though, as each of these questions have in their own way taken a great toll on me emotionally. The reason for that, I guess, must be that there is no one way to answer those questions. There is an inexhaustible amount of variation in potential possibilities, making it impossible to contingency plan for each one. The common feature between all possibilities, however, is that they require a response.
I cannot plan for each possibility, or even plan my response to each possibility, but I can take solace in the fact that I will most definitely have the power and opportunity to respond to begin with. There was no way to plan or anticipate what 2020 has brought me. I could have chosen to respond in a number of ways, but there seems to be two predominant options: be miserable and sulk, or take what comes and learn. This blog post is an illustration of me choosing to embrace the latter. I could choose to be negative, hopeless, and anxious about what 2021 will bring. But instead, I will choose to learn, to hold space for hope, and to trust that whatever comes next, I will be afforded to opportunity to respond in the ways that I deem best.
12. Our responsibility is not to remain stoic and unchanged; it is to feel everything and guide resulting changes in a positive direction.
When Rae passed, I was told by someone that I love to become less sensitive, and less trusting in the world. They claimed that this would protect me from a future full of pain and suffering. While at first I was insulted at the idea, eventually I came round to considering it. After a few days of contemplation, I decided that feeling nothing was the easy way out.
Emotions exist for a reason. They are physiological and of evolutionary origin. If they didn’t serve a purpose, we would have lost the ability to feel a long time ago. I believe that emotions are there to feel in their entirety, the good ones, and the bad ones. However, emotions are separate from my identity. I can use them as a tool to guide my future actions and shape who I would like to become, but they do not define who I am.
Grieving Raegan has been the hardest experience of my life, and it is an ongoing one. I find myself doing things to distract from or avoid the pain altogether. Sometimes, though, even donned with my most rigid armour, I am triggered by small things that I don’t expect. Someone rolls their eyes at me, and I flashback to a memory of her rolling her eyes at something dumb I had said. I drive past a Wendy’s, and I remember that whenever we hung out, that was the only fast food she was ever interested in eating. I take a bite of a fricking Caesar salad and all of a sudden I wind up on my old living room couch, beside her, eating the extravagant birthday meal she requested: Caesar salad and a buttered baked potato. When these memories surface I do my best to allow myself an authentic emotional experience, to submit to the pain that arises and feel it thoroughly. That being said, doing this is scary and hard, and I am inconsistent in my capacity to do this.
I hold on to my feelings of loss and grief, because I realize now that I was not supposed to remain unchanged through this experience. I was supposed to hurt, I was supposed to suffer, I was supposed to “become”. Raegan’s death was a result of something so much bigger than a freak accident. Channeling my feelings of heartbreak and grief will motivate me to create large-scale changes in Raegan’s name, and to pursue a future direction conducive to that goal.
More so than anything else, the depth of my sadness is a reflection of the depth of love that I had, and still have for Raegan. Losing her was crippling, but loving her and being loved by her were two of the best feelings that I have ever known. By honouring my feelings and my grief, I am honouring Raegan’s memory and opening the door to the creation of a continuing legacy in her name.
Raegan’s loss hit me hard, because we loved each other so hard. Any negative emotion that I have felt has come as a result of losing the positive ones. Life is a balance, and with the good there comes the bad. With the extremely high highs, comes the counterbalancing low lows. I cannot selectively filter out my emotions. I either feel them all, or I feel none at all. I refuse to lose love or joy in an effort to prevent rejection or grief. I do not want to be closed off, I want to feel, I want connection, I want substance.
I will not shy away from the good simply because it comes with the bad. I have accepted that you cannot have one without the possibility of the other. Consequently, I will take and feel everything, and use my experiences to grow and become better.
13. Do not wait for the “perfect time”, it doesn’t exist.
I say this because I waited. I waited for the right time to end my toxic relationship, I waited for the perfect moment to start pursuing self-love, I waited for the ideal time to go visit Raegan, I waited to ask for help. I waited, and then I regretted waiting.
I have used bad timing as an excuse for just about everything. It is a fool-proof excuse, because there never, ever seems to be a “perfect time” for anything. There is no perfect time to move on, to make amends with an old friend or your family, to start a new venture, to go to the bar, to do that assignment you’ve been putting off, to wear that new dress or that new pair of shoes. There is no “perfect” time, only “good enough”.
By staying laser-focused on the perfect, I have overlooked and missed entirely the “good enough”. I have missed out on opportunities to be happy, opportunities to move forward, opportunities to have even a little bit of fun. For me, this fixation on perfection comes from a fear of the inevitable–a fear of change. It is as if I know, subconsciously, that if I wait for the “perfect” moment, I will never have to make the jump or take a step forward. I abet myself into inaction, using timing as a justification. The result? Regret and a whole lot of “what if’s”.
Through my own experiences and my cognitive psychology classes, I have learned the art of satisficing–accepting the “good enough” in lieu of the “perfect”. Statistically, there is almost no difference in success resulting from the “good enough” compared with the “perfect”. There is very little scientific justification for waiting for the “perfect” time. So instead, I have chosen to accept change rather than fear it, and value “good enough” as a near equivalent to “perfect”. Moving forward, I hope that this decision to say yes more often will result in less regrets and “what ifs”.
Thirteen is my lucky number, so it seems only appropriate that the hellhole we call 2020 has brought me thirteen substantial lessons (and an infinite number of smaller ones). While each lesson is distinct, they all work together in succession. 2020 has brought an arsenal of loss, hopelessness, and strife. But for me, it has also brought curiosity, enlightenment, and vast amounts of love. I am grateful for all that this year has taught me, and all of the amazing people that have come into my life as a direct result of these lessons. I mourn the loss of Raegan deeply, but I am inexplicably grateful for the time we did share. While 2020 definitely kicked my ass, I still managed to come out of it as a better version of myself.
That is the best “fuck you” to 2020 that I could ever imagine.