A Truthful New Years Recap

I tried to make an Instagram post for New Years. I tried to condense the confusion, joy, terror, and peace I felt in the most complicated year of my life into a single post with ten photos. I couldn’t. No arrangement of photos or reworked caption felt remotely representative of a year I will look back to for the entirety of my life. The year I will tell my children I married their father in. The year I will subtract from subsequent years to work out the mathematics of my time married. The year on my diploma. The conclusion of eighteen years of education. It seems a year of celebration, achievement, one that should receive an online boast. Reality, however, does not exist in such binaries of purely good or bad. This year brought the deepest abounding joy of my life through my marriage. This year also shifted the ground I stand upon and left me searching for a new sense of self.

Upon graduation, I completed the singular goal which drove and defined me through the last two decades of my life. I achieved something monumental, and I am proud. But who am I if not a student? I knew how to succeed in the realm of education. I knew who I was within it. For the first time in my life, the next steps are unclear. I hate it. My days have become a void of work-from-home loneliness and the sinking feeling of failure. Where is the success so vehemently promised to come along with a college degree? How do I know how to find it? Twenty-three also brings the deterioration of the social support circle which has carried me through the last five years. With the conclusion of university, friends are scattering across the globe. The people and activities, which filled my life for years are vanishing. Sometimes I feel I am vanishing too.

Then comes the guilt and shame. I longed for the comfort, stability, and enduring love that came with marriage since childhood, so now that I had it why couldn’t I just be happy? As a newlywed shouldn’t I be blissed for months? On our wedding night I had an anxiety attack. It was likely a combination of the overstimulation of the wedding, my anxiety fixating on everything that went wrong, sadness about my bridal days ending, and the realization that all my anxieties and insecurities remained post-marriage. Consciously, I never expected them to vanish, but subconsciously I carried the belief that marriage would be a fix-all. I grew up in a religious upbringing which emphasized the importance of marriage and family above all else (especially for women). Clearly, I am still unlearning the beliefs it embedded in me. Marriage will not define my life, I will. Marriage will not heal me, I will. My husband Seth is not a solution, but an advocate, partner, and support. Seth’s complete acceptance of me on our wedding night only affirmed I made the right choice in him. He felt no disappointment or frustration when an evening meant to be “sexy” was instead spent comforting me through my emotions. While my anxieties remain post-wedding, I now have an ally to help me combat them.

I am grateful. Terribly so. This year was a triumph, but it was not only that. Loads of pages in my gratitude journal were filled, but I was not always grateful. We do ourselves a disservice by ignoring the hard bits of life. The difficult feelings, teary days, sleepless nights. We trick others into thinking they are bad for feeling bad, by never offering up our own pains as commonplace and normal. Growing hurts! Yet, we need it. We can acknowledge both parts of this sentiment without discrediting either. I cannot define the convoluted feelings of this year. They will not fit into an Instagram post. Even written in this blurb, I diluted my experiences. The expansive and messy nature of life refuses to be pinned down. This year was a big one, full of big feelings. I am still processing most of them. I am lost in many ways. I am found in others. The year was good and bad: happy and sad. Filled with beginnings and endings. Here is my attempt at summation and appreciation for a wonderfully wild year. I hope you understand.