A year ago I picked the word waves.
Lately, I’ve joked that it was a little too on the nose. Did I manifest the chaos of a wind-whipped lake or simply predict that 2023 would be tumultuous?
A year ago I wrote, “Maybe it’s looking at this year ahead and not knowing what it will bring but knowing that it will be hard, either way. It will be a thousand other things too, I’m sure, but I think it will be hard. I don’t want to be soft, but I think I’ll need to be fluid, resilient to the changing of the tides.”
So I knew, didn’t I? I knew this year was going to challenge me. I knew it was going to be a year of uncertainty and change.
Was I fluid? Was I resilient?
I wrote, “I need to figure out how to ride the waves or else lose my damn mind.”
. . . I think I lost my damn mind.
I review bits of poetry I posted in 2023, piecing together one story of my year:
Twenty-one weeks
We’re over halfway
But it’s a month to the day
She said yes
I walk in disbelief
And in hope
Today, I hope you’re happy too
As you gave your new vows
And lived to love again
I hope our broken story
Led you to the right one
I see him in black
and white. Love weighs just a pound.
Watch it grow, grow, grow.
Seven hundred miles
Four-hour conversation
It’s worth the distance
Blue paint on my fingernails
I miss some of the drips
The ocean is messy
Life’s like that too
But I think this blue room
Will be perfect for you
I keep opening the door
Imagining what could be
I see him playing on the floor
Pretending to sail out to sea
It is an odd ache
To hope and plan so openly
When all it would take
Is an “it’s not meant to be”
If I only knew what I want to know
Will the ground give out beneath my feet
Or am I flinching at shadows
One more step forwards
When I get still and quiet
I hear him, we wait for one another
Conviction or delusion
It’s a leap of faith
5/31/23 (unpublished):
Happy birthday to a boy I may never know
Who may never fall asleep to the sound of the waves in the bay
Who may never play with the same toy trains that I did
Who may never even know my name
I keep rationalizing
Then tearing it to shreds
It’s like living through the tsunami
All over again
I am distraction right now
Reaching for what I must
To pass days of grief
Trusting grief will pass
Thirty-one
A little unmoored
But still – building a life
Then the wave crests
And the cycle begins again
If depression were a dick I’d blow it just to make it go away
“Write the truest sentence that you know”
Hemingway said that
But Hemingway was a drunk
And an asshole by most accounts
But these days I feel like a drunk
And an asshole
Look at cabinet handles and black fridges
Because when everything hits so hard
And you want to set fire to the bridges
At least you can collapse on new floors
Start, stop, and keep the thoughts
That flirt with hope
Tying all those knots at the end of our rope
Hold on and swing for a while, darling
To her – rest in love with the sound of gentle waves
To those who loved her – may we be met with kinder days
This is who I am right now:
I make my meetings on time but I’ll rip my fingernails until they bleed
I used to think I heard a voice
I used to think I felt a heartbeat long before the call
Too many months have passed for that
So I didn’t hear anything at all
And see – I’m in therapy (that looks good)
I take walks (another plus)
My house is clean, my laundry’s done
I make all my meetings
(On paper I’ve nearly won)
I write a note for myself
Here is what I’ll do if it happens again
Like habit hacking grief
Can be done with a post-it and a pen
I dip my hands in the bay
Walking in circles without faith
So I make my own ritual
Groundhog Day
Looking for the lesson
The lake rituals failed
My hands are just wet and cold
Not blessed
All those breadcrumbs
All the waiting
Wondering if I’ll starve
Then I starve
I think about third options
I am built on third options
(and fourth and fifth and more)
Then: wave after wave after wave
Spit out the salt
Call it life
Make it mean something
She texts me: He is two months old today.
She sends me a video of the noise he makes.
If I had armor once, it’s gone to the river
My sword has fallen to my side
And over the far hill, here comes another fight
The waves felt a little less like riding to a new shore
And more like the crash
Like the gulp of saltwater
Burning down your throat
Like lungs reaching for air
That just isn’t there
There is a prettier picture I could paint of my year. But the reality is that 2023 was drenched in anxiety and grief. I had two disrupted adoptions this year, each different and messy in their own way. In October, when the second baby boy was born I had the worst panic attack in my memory. There were waves of despair crashing down on me over and over until I couldn’t find who I was anymore. And then I got on a Zoom meeting to lead trivia for a work team builder.
This year was a little like that — unimaginable things and then work and then distraction and then figuring out a way to carry on. I am a mess, but I am not quite the mess I could be. Is that what resilience is? I wanted to ride the waves this year and I don’t think I rode them so much as survived them. But I didn’t drown. I’m still here.
I took my first solo hiking trip this year, a week in the Upper Peninsula to reset my heart. It was beautiful and cold and quiet. Quiet enough that I could hear my own thoughts again.
The first half of my year was waves of parenthood planning — too many YouTube videos and a CPR class and building a registry and waiting for someone to email me back. I went to Hawai’i and did some of the most spectacular hikes of my life with my parents. I spent time with my friends. I cleaned and organized my whole home.
The second half of the year was the tsunami, the lightning-stuck tower. Besides the grief and loss I felt (feel) over the disrupted adoptions, I lost my aunt suddenly at the end of August. All the small things — bouts of Covid, being away from home too much, missing the Taylor Swift concert, pressure at work — felt like they added up. Every molehill a mountain.
But I also consistently ran a Dungeons & Dragons game all year as the Dungeon Master. That was on my list for the year — play more D&D.
And I completed NaNoWriMo for the first time in November. I wanted to write more this year.
I didn’t move as much as I wanted to, not at the end of this year.
I drank more than I should have.
My reading goal is only half complete.
But I went to a Renaissance Faire. And a Brandi Carlisle concert. I traveled to New York City and to Austin. I spent time with friends.
I got new floors. A new refrigerator. New cabinet handles. New counters. A new king-sized bed. Life is chaos but I can control my condo.
I wrote this blog every day. I managed to find one minute every day to breathe before bed.
Waves — the crest, the trough, the ups, the downs. It was the right word for the year, but I wish it wasn’t. I wish I had a prettier bow to tie on the end of this year, but life is not told in calendar year installments.
Kubra Sait said, “No matter how hard the waves are, you will float on the ocean.”
Maybe that’s where I am right now. Out of breath and wet and there will be salt on my skin for days to come. I’m not swimming or surfing or sailing over the waves, but I am floating. I am here. I can breathe. That’s a little miracle. That’s reason enough for gratitude.
And I am overflowing with gratitude — my family, my friends, every person and circumstance that gave me a break and let me grieve and be and figure out how to move forward.
Here’s to calmer waters next year. Or at least a sturdier boat.
With Love,
Natalie