I’ve come a long way.
2015 has been pivotal and I have come an undeniably long way. But the phrase “come a long way” is misleading at best. It evokes the image of a simple forward trajectory. A straight route from here to there. But coming a long way doesn’t look like that. The path is littered with pitfalls. It’s being up, breaking down, and phoning a friend to get back up again. It’s making peace with Monday, only to wrestle your way through Wednesday. Coming a long way is braking and backpedaling and rerouting. It means riding similar ups and downs over and over again with a new attitude, lots of lessons learned, and a tighter grip on your faith in yourself.
This is a piece of my mind. I thumbed through my journal and pulled the parts of this year that helped to paint my path of 2015. I’ve extracted the extreme ups and downs and laid them on a timeline so you can see what it looks like to come a long way. Enjoy, maybe?
January
1/3/15- I let 2015 come without any explosive entry in my journal. No anxious countdown laced with wins and losses. I just let it come uneventfully. Because that’s the way it felt. Uneventful. Another day I get to (have to) lay around and hide feeling especially unloved, unimportant, unmotivated to live, really, at all.
1/13/15 – Don’t ever stop believing in a God who can & will turn your situation around. Thoughts become things.
1/27/15- Call me crazy, but writers need days like this. Unintentional. Days when you come to your journal to talk about Philippians and end up writing a page about graphite and paper.
1/29/15- God has amazing, incredible plans in store for me. But first!… But first he wants to get better. I’ve been writing like a madwoman, battling sadness.
February
2/3/15- I had my story posted on Erica’s blog today. Greater is coming.
2/10/15- Who tf am I if Jesus the Messiah, knowing Himself, remained humble? Dude was riding on a donkey! Humility, folks.
2/14/15- I am sick and fucking tired of being miserable.
2/20 15- Toying with the idea that I was not put on this earth for the sake of myself. The more I think about it, the more I realize that this is the sentence my life has been trying to say for years.
March
3/2/2015 – I want so badly to live. Not breathe, but live…
3/29/15- If I die young, if I die now, I just need everyone to chill. Don’t be sad for me or for my unfinished projects or experiences that I didn’t get to live out. Don’t weep for all I could’ve done. If God called me home, I’ve done enough.
3/30/15- I’m on the brink of a blessing and things will soon turn around for me and I’m glad.
April
4/1/15- I had a panic attack at rehearsal last night. Whatever.
4/6/15- Change is happening all around me and I’m not adjusting well. I did NOT want the sun to set on yesterday. I felt like I was losing something, like a chapter of my life was slipping away. I feel like I should be happier now. The warm weather is here. I’m afraid that this year will speed past me and I’ll be in the darkness I was in last year and the year before. I want to be happy. I want to be loved and adored and I don’t want to have to worry about sunsets.
May
5/25/15- Why am I so goddamned crazy? What is this feeling and why am I so goddamned crazy? I feel trapped. I need help.
5/28/15- …she moves like she knows Jesus.
5/29/15- I’ve been in a frenzy last night. Moredinary. It’s happening.
June
6/2/15- Matthew 8:13: Go your way and as you have believed, so let it be done for you.
6/7/15- Mommy once thought I as a lesbian because I told her I got a warm feeling from women. I couldn’t fully describe it then, but I know it now. It wasn’t lesbianism. It was trust.
6/14/15- I don’t wish to be in any other time but this. I live. I love.
6/18/15- I always feel 1000000% better if my sister is bearing a burden with me. This is the best I’ve felt all week.
6/29/15- My heart is happy to be home. My mind still needs to be free though.
July
7/6/15- When I stop writing, I lose my sense of time. If I don’t write for days, I feel like it’s been weeks.
7/8/15- I just want a job that doesn’t feel like jail.
7/11/15- I feel the impending doom of fall.
7/15/15- I’ve been afraid to voice how unhappy I am.
7/15/15- Mere minutes left of being 23. 23 was such a growing and stretching period for me. But 24. I feel a certain way about 24 that I’ve never felt before about any other age. It’s my golden year. 24 karats, baby!
7/22/15- Pause. Pause pause pause pause pause. I’m feeling discouraged. There is a lot to do, but I have nothing to lose but time. I have no money right now. HOW am I going to do this? I refuse to stop believing. This is a time for God to show up & show out.
August
8/2/15- Another lovely summer Sunday afternoon. I want to save today and come back to it later, should I need it.
8/8/15- I will rest well knowing that this is exactly where I need to be.
8/17/15- Good, great, amazing things are coming my way.
8/23/25- Quite alright with me, God.
8/24/15- This is anxiety, worrying about a problem that hasn’t arisen yet.
September
9/12/15- There has been a lot of shifting since I’ve been here. You know what this tells me? This place is unstable. You know what else this tells me? Stability comes from within. I have to be spiritually stable. I must have peace within.
9/21/15- It is finished. Moredinary’s She Who Believes is done. Can we explore this emptiness I feel? The two theories I’ve come up with: 1. The work is not complete. 2. This event wasn’t for me. I gave. I gave. I gave.
9/25/15- By some miracle I’ve been at peace today. This is my season of change: of growth, of removal, of becoming, stretching, flourishing. Tomorrow I may be a mess. Next week I may be a mess, but know, Ro, that I am okay.
9/26/15- I hope tomorrow is cathartic. I think that’s what we need here. A little cathartic closure and then onward to my future.
October
10/5/15- I’m so grateful for the sun shining today. It’s been about a week since the sun shined. Almost unbearable.
November
11/22/15- I’ve said that this desk is the first thing I’ll take with me when I uproot. It’s the first thing I’ve purchased for that purpose. This is preparation.
December
12/1/15- What happens when all my cards get played and I come up short in every arena?
12/2/15- I feel childish never having truly loved or been loved.
12/6/15- I’ve come a long way.
I love this as a means of recapping the year, genuinely & in your own at-the-time words. I also relate closely to some of these sentiments. Have you ever heard this line of poetry from Mary Oliver? “Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?” I think of it all the time, when I feel like I’m just getting by.
Wishing you all the best & more growth in 2016. Greater is coming. <3
🙂 Thank you, Kate.I haven’t heard that line but I love it. It’s a beautiful wake up call. I think it’s funny how we need reminders for something so simple as living. And you’re right. Greater is coming.
Can’t wait to quote these. To you.
You know that half-grimace, half-smirk I make when I don’t know whether to hug you for being an awesome friend or shake you for being Yetti? Yeah that. Right now.