It’s amazing how quickly things can change. My previous post briefly described how 2024 started off fairly nicely and quietly for me. Since then, it has gone full speed in the other direction. It took almost no time for there to be a financial scare, health issues (both my own and those of close family members), and other setbacks to moving forward in my life.
This has happened for years now: every time I get back up on my feet, something immediately comes along to knock me down. It happened fairly infrequently from 2013 until 2018. During that time, every year ending with an odd number was some degree of bad and every year ending with an even number was at least pleasant and at most amazing. The year 2019 broke that trend as it was a nice year, though it seemed bad at the time after how incredible 2018 had been. Unfortunately, a new, worse trend developed right after 2019 ended: from 2020 until 2022, each of those years were significantly worse than the previous. My dog Sawyer’s death in April of 2022 was the most painful experience of my life; it took me until fairly recently to heal enough that I could pick myself up and begin to move forward. Now it seems that another painful curveball is coming my way. I’m done with this.
Many people I know have had huge struggles in life for a time before eventually climbing out of the pit and into a solid place. I’ve had that in short bursts over the past decade or so. So far, there has never been more than a year or two of my adult life in which things have gone smoothly before some major obstacle wreaks havoc. I know some big changes have to be made for me to get where I want to be. Part of my struggle is making those changes from where I’m at now. Several things that helped me survive Sawyer’s death are now no longer essential, although they still help. I loathe the idea of cutting back on them or giving them up entirely. Small, gradual life changes have always worked the best for me, so that’s still my approach at this point. I hope I can find the courage to make them sooner rather than later.
I had a brief crisis on Friday night when everything seemed overwhelming. The emotional pain and accompanying dread for the future reminded me of how I felt after Sawyer’s death (although they were much lower down on the pain scale). Fortunately, a few letting go sessions that night and many the following day made me feel dramatically better. I’ve kept up those extra sessions this week and they have continued to help. At this point, I hope that I can keep working toward my dreams despite the many fears that surround me, and I also hope that the rest of this year is much smoother than its first week has been.