I know it’s a bit late to write a review of 2013. I want to say it’s because of the flurry and happy madness of Christmas and our annual two-night trip to a nearby hotel (courtesy of saved-up Tesco tokens), so I’ve not been able to write because I’ve been resting from these things. But the truth is there’s a part of me that has been dreading this post and putting it off. The real review of 2013, ‘my year of anyway’, will come soon: this is just something I had to write first.
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This year I signed up for an excellent online Advent-Epiphany spiritual reflection course, hosted by my friend Tara. As a result, I felt spiritually prepared – and rested, somehow – when Christmas came, and I really enjoyed the festive season.
Towards the end of December, I logged onto the course Fuze Call (like a Skype conference call) for the next reflective exercise: we were reviewing the year. I like reviewing things. I was looking forward to it. I smiled at the other faces popping up on the call, and settled back in my bed, my head propped up with pillows and cushions.
Start with January, she suggested. And immediately, the memory came: in January 2013 I was rushed to hospital in an ambulance because it looked very much like I was having a heart attack or pulmonary embolism.
I tried to think beyond that, to February, March, but they were all blank, and all I could think of was January and the ambulance ride. Last year I said I would write about it sometime but not now, and after a year on I am still not ready to write about it.
I tried to move on: April – blank, May – the ME relapse, the tachycardia, collapsing in the corridor, the fear.
June, July – blank, August – the fight to try to get an appointment with my ME specialist.
I watched my face in the computer screen sink lower down into the pillows and I hoped that the others wouldn’t see my tears. I tried again – but I couldn’t get past it – January, the ambulance; May, the relapse, the fear; August, the fight, the weariness.
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If you think about it, Christmas and New Year are pre-disposed to make you somewhat emotional. (There’s nothing like a season of enforced jollity to make you feel miserable.) This year I actually loved Christmas, and I was well enough to eat dinner with the family and able to watch my boy open all of his presents, and I was thankful for these precious gifts. But if Christmas doesn’t get you, New Year will: a time where you are obliged to identify all your sparkly achievements for the year and make resolutions (again) that this year things will change.
On that particular evening, I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t think about 2013.
I avoided it for a day or so, tried to focus on the good things, told myself it was about the time that everyone was writing their blog posts on 2013, and I ought to do mine too. Still I couldn’t write it.
Eventually, having failed on the ignoring-and-counting-blessings tactic, I gave into the sadness. On the 30th December I took a good look at the hard parts of 2013. I felt them again, I cried. A lot. I even told God about it: “Dear Lord, that was kinda hard. I’m tired.” I let the cloud and gloom envelop me.
That was a rough day.
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It didn’t feel great, but the tears were cleansing. Even as I wiped the tears away, the positive memories and things I was proud of started to trickle in.
Sometimes you have to grieve a difficult year before you can celebrate it. Sometimes we have to feel it all before we can move on.
Sometimes we have to acknowledge that huge black cloud and let it purge all its rain before we can see the rays of the positive and precious memories, glinting and glistening.
Because I had given good attention to the black clouds of 2013, I didn’t have to work to count my blessings. I felt them pour into my mind, the happy memories of 2013, bright fireworks breaking up the darkness.
This was my year: hard, painful and full of goodness.
This is life: hard, painful and full of goodness.
I wrote them all down: the dark memories and the glints of gold. I kept writing. I kept finding things to be thankful for. There were so many glints of gold that in the end all I could see was the goodness sparkling against a dark background.
And somehow it’s the goodness that stays with me.
As I sit and read through my list of all that happened in the year, that verse pops into my head: “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, to him be the glory…” I exhale deeply, wipe tears of thankfulness, and look with a smile to 2014.
Over to you:
- How has your 2013 been?
- What do you find helps in saying goodbye to a difficult year?
Oh I’ve been processing the last year and it’s been hard. I just have no words. And you summed it up:
“Sometimes you have to grieve a difficult year before you can celebrate it. Sometimes we have to feel it all before we can move on.”
I haven’t let myself do that and i’m not sure why. It seems hard to grieve a year past that we survived when knowing this year, it is likely we will not.
Many people put a bad year behind them in hopes that the New Year will be better. My bad year will lean into what could likely be the worst year yet as my husband slowly succumbs to his disease. I am terrified of 2014 and would kind of like to stay in 2013 if I could…..
Praying for the Lords strength, for both of us, as we just keep going forward, hoping and praying that 2014 holds much more promise and hope than we ever dreamed! Thank you so much for this post!
I’m guessing it must have been hard even to write this.
I’m just sitting with you, with that feeling of, ‘this has been so hard – I can’t do any more – but I have this gutwrenching feeling it’s just going to get harder.’
Praying that the Lord who can do ‘immeasurably all than we ask or imagine’ will really do that for you. With all my heart.
I’ve been trying to comment on this post for days but I just haven’t been able to. 2013 was strange. The first few moths were pretty bad, but around Easter I was stronger and more energetic that I’ve been since I got ME. (Also happier and more hopeful.) It didn’t last for long though, at the end of summer I had to move back in with my parents for a while because of the worst relapse I’ve ever had. It was awful and incredibly scary. During the autumn months I started getting better though. I even managed to do a little Christmas baking! (But I still haven’t gotten my mother a Christmas present…)
I’m still not sure what to make of last year, but I’m very grateful for the beautiful spring when I was able to see a few friends and even play outside with my nieces and nephews. I’m also thankful for my incredible parents who help me every day and do so much for me.
Oh, lovely Rebecka. I’m so sorry, so so sorry that you had such an awful relapse this year. It IS scary. Really scary.
It feels like you are in the ‘middle’ of your story at the moment. Is it that you are not quite sure how to process it, because you don’t yet know the ending…? It’s hard to work through something when you don’t know whether you will be calling the relapse the start of something ongoing or just an unhappy blip. I see how you are working hard to claim joy in the midst of it all, and that is beautiful to me. Much love to you.
Thank you so much for this lovely reply! I can’t tell you how moved I was by it.
I think you might be right, I feel like I’m in the “middle”, even though I’ve never thought of it like that before. Thank you for your insight. 🙂 Much love to you too.
I’m so, so glad this was helpful to you! You are such a star. X
Tanya you are so right when you say “This is life: hard, painful and full of goodness.” It is something to be said about thinking about the rough times, the mental beatings we take, and the times we are pushed to the brink for as we recall all the hell we also acknowledge that we made it through even when we were not sure we could.
For your strength is revealed in the dark Tanya and strong you are. As I read your blog throughout the year that strength of yours burst brightly forth from the darkness we all knew surrounded you. I count it an honor you share those dark times with us and share how you struggle through them for they give us hope as we struggle as well.
It is an honor to know you…. to see you paint your stories with thorns and gold..
“For your strength is revealed in the dark Tanya and strong you are.” – this is a precious thing to hear, thank you. Sometimes we need to hear those things we don’t believe about ourselves spoken over us. I am always grateful for you.