Goodbye 2022

I was dreading the year end, while 2023 means a new beginning, it also is a reminder of everything that 2022 was and if there is a way I can describe my 2022 then it'd be this - missing a flight, milk curdling as you heat it, booking the wrong train tickets, unsaved word doc, toilet paper running out, power failure in middle of baking a cake, trying, trying so hard to hit the mark but missing it every single time. I was on a run on a race that I could never finish. Every time that I'd reach that ribbon, it'd be pulled away just a few inches away.

As I woke up yesterday (I partly wrote this on the 31st) it dawned on me that it was over. The year was soon going to be over in less than 24 hours. It made me want to rush back and still correct things if I could, it reminded of the times we'd all give exams in school and there always be this one exam where even after the bell rings you still have things to write but the sheet is invariably snatched from you. While everyone says reflect back on the year, I don't think I am ready to reflect yet. I always felt excited about the new year but something about 2022 felt unfinished.

In many ways 2023 is a new beginning but it is not a fresh start. As much as it was possible I wish one could just leave things behind but the process of disintegration feels like physically hacking tiniest of the memories, words, music, scents, colors out. Just when you think you maybe done, more surface - something as trivial as a wrapper. It is physically and mentally exhausting, and painstakingly slow. Maybe it is not hacking it away eventually but then just making peace with it occupying a room and not visiting this room anymore.

2022 did teach me an important lesson about the importance of mental health - I felt like I was just shuttling, be it different projects at work, physical work locations, tumultuous personal life, all in all the state of mind was like a bowl of water through which a spoon is vigorously shaken. How does one see anything clearly in it? At the end all the balls were dropped after a valiant juggling attempt. I believe we see without fear when we are the most relaxed. Let it come to you. Anxiety and fear distort reality, like an illusion, everything seems like a doomsday prophecy.

For now things don't make sense, a lot of futility to understand the whys and the what ifs, and more than anything the what may have beens. I have a tendency to plan and visualize way too much into the future - Instagram story to post for someone's next birthday, the outfit for a night out, coffee table that I want at my house, nuzzling my future pet cat, dance songs for functions, therefore 2023 feels like a demise of an alternate reality. For once I don't know and I don't have an idea. I guess that is okay - I did it my way and I failed, time to throw my hands up, live in the present perhaps and no more building castles in the air for a while. The Pinterest snorting me is on a break! All I ask for 2023 is to be kind to me and my shortcomings, meet me in the middle. Pretty please with a cherry on top.

Artwork from my dear friend PK - The Edge of the World