My last post regarding reflecting on my life was on the 7th anniversary of moving to Alaska, and I figured it’d be good to sum up my year, which ended spectacularly, despite a few wrong turns and some unfortunate luck (which I also addressed around my 35th birthday).

I had mentioned I keep an Excel sheet of essentially: travel; “the good” (things to essentially be grateful for that stand out); “the bad” (misfortune, bad luck, broad negatives) and “failures” (things I myself did wrong; ways I misstepped, made crappy choices or didn’t live up to my own standards). I was sure this year sucked more than the handful of previous ones by June, but I was wrong. And while the year, for me, at least emotionally, got worse, it was largely due to my own failures. And to someone who possesses a strong internal locus of control, that means resolution(s) are usually in reach. When I was young, and just starting out in my career, and had no money or general wherewithal, life spun out of control much more violently. Absent full-scale tragedies like my friend’s death in last January, the struggles of my life these days are merely a series of annoying hiccups: this to me is the ultimate prosperity.

The end of 2019 was a welcome close to many things for me: I knew my job was evolving and I’d be changing teams, which is the best thing for me for a variety of reasons. I had also been waffling for a few months in an unproductive relationship I was hesitant to close the doors on indefinitely: sometimes it’s difficult to appreciate how much dissatisfaction you can feel from something like that until you look at it in full hindsight. Perhaps much more importantly, though, the person I am closest to up here was having a litany of his own personal issues, none of which I could improve in any way (for someone who likes to take charge and fix things, this is a frustrating and demotivating situation to be in, to be unable to help someone you love). I decided sometime in the fall that things were so bad, and I was becoming so unhappy that I had to leave for a few weeks and definitely come back with my shit together, or else. Feeling like shit every day is not my status quo, and I felt for months as though I was amassing problems I could do nothing to resolve. This sucked. Big time.

That said, I realized many years ago that sometimes the only thing you can do is control the way you perceive things, and I know I am naturally inclined to be cynical, which is where this spreadsheet comes in. If I really look at what has transpired this year without a chip on my shoulder, I can see that despite an annoying health setback, I possessed the resources to resolve it to the best of my ability without being buried in medical bills (not to mention my employer and friends were all extremely supportive); that while I spent some time mired in a relationship that was a struggle from the start, it wasn’t for the wrong reasons, and it wasn’t with a bad person, and I really tried to make it work while advocating for myself, which is not something I have always been good at; that within the bounds of my job I often felt unappreciated and misunderstood for most of this year, but still rendered a lot of value to a company I actually really enjoy working for.

I think the top level view is that I rarely see any single (or even group of) event(s) as be-all, end-alls, and with age comes the realization that even tidal waves of combined problems eventually pass. As I mentioned, I’ve put so much effort into providing myself with layers of security — financial, emotional, intellectual, professional — that moreso now than ever before, I feel as though if life kicks a leg out from the table of my life, there will scarcely be much of a wobble. It’s easy to lose sight of this when you ruminate on the negative: it took some real time to see the light at the end of the tunnel this year.

So, I headed back to New York a few weeks ago feeling pretty beaten down, but I knew the friends I’d see along the way would remind me of the fact that despite ending up here years ago for reasons I still can’t entirely explain other than “it was what I had to do,” 2019, the last 6 months, my current life, Alaska, my job, whatever else is not the whole story: that you need other people to put your life, your view, your experience and your value into perspective. You can also be independent to a fault, but to ignore how important your relationships are to your general well-being is not only ignorant but damaging: there are few indicators of longevity more vital than human relationships, even if you’re a weird girl who works from home in the great white north. You never know who you’ll cross paths with by being open to the world, and so many people over the span of my life have shown me that. There were some bright spots: a lot of travel, particularly a wildly amazing time in the Caucasus and Bosnia; a fall trip to Mexico City to cross Day of the Dead off my list; and a mellow winter, where my withdrawal from everyone at least coincided with hiding in books, which has never been a bad way to pass even bad times for me. There’s a quote I always loved: “sometimes you win, sometimes you learn,” and 2019 for sure was a learning year more than a winning one.

I’ve been going to Vegas for many years to sleep off my emotional ills and relax/reorient myself (seems like an odd place to do so, I’ve been told, but that’s how I roll), and the last few days of this year were the best trip there I have ever experienced. I live in a place where we think of life, and nature, as apathetic and unforgiving, but I ended this year feeling as though life has given me something. And so, that’s how 2020 has begun: with a glance back at a year filled with things that could’ve gone better, though one that also showed me that with careful life choices and a lot of reflection (and maybe a list or two), life is rarely as bad at any given time as I may think or feel.

Quite a few of my real life friends read this blog, so if you’re one of them, thank you.