Naomi

I’ve already had my little New Year crisis and gotten over it, so I haven’t got much to write about today. It seemed like I had an avalanche of anxiety on the first day of the year but I naturally let most of it go, just as it naturally came. It’s nice to confront a hill and then climb over it and be done with it (through lots and lots of writing in my private diary and walks and guitar strumming, etc.). In the early hours of the morning, I had a conversation with myself (in my head–I am not that crazy yet):

“Why is life going to be so hard?”

“It doesn’t have to be hard.”

“Wait…what did you just say?!?!”

(I’ll get back to you on this particular theory.)

What I am reminded of at the moment is what my therapist said to me a few weeks ago. Part of the battle in anything, she said, is overcoming self-hate and self-doubt. She said that I am slowly rebuilding my house after it got knocked down, and I am taking extra care and attention with the foundation. Other people may build their house right up again but then it will get knocked over at the first instance.

For several years now I’ve been struggling with anxiety, chronic fatigue, and depression. I’ve had therapy for about two and a half years. I think it’s helped, slowly, but it certainly doesn’t turn your life around in one day. Sometimes it is just nice to talk to someone who isn’t a family member or a friend, because they are completely impartial.

From an outsider’s point of view, it may not seem very impressive what I’m doing, because perhaps you can’t see it as well as if I had just built my house up in a hurry, just for people to admire. But it just means that when I am ready, the building of a beautiful, beautiful house (it will be beautiful) will be a bit smoother because I will have a made a solid base so that if a strong wind comes along, it may shake a little but it will still be standing.

I may not be entering the new year with anything to show people in terms of progress. I have no paper evidence of what I’ve been working on in 2011, and other people may not be able to see a thing. But my goals, struggles, and changes have never synched themselves with the turning of the years, or months, or days. They are slow, gradual, constant, and lasting. ♦