2024 has indeed been a shit show in so many ways. That’s not what I expected this year to be, if I am being candid. Every year, I hear from my loved ones that this year will be your year, Jas. And I believe them every year. Now, I am doing my very best to fight the cognitive distortions here, and my all-or-nothing thinking is showing. But you can have a lot of good and a lot of bad, and they won’t always be equal in measure. It takes a lot to hope and keep working on making the right changes.
This was also the first year in a decade of mental health training and practice where I truly felt the first wave of compassion fatigue. Maybe it was because I was so tired of putting myself back together so often. I found it hard sometimes to be there for others.
As this year comes to a close, I am exhausted and finding it really hard to keep going. To keep trying. To keep putting the pieces together before life brings in another wave. But my hope is still there. As we put back those pieces, we begin to redefine who we are – sometimes for the better. I wonder, though, why this hope doesn’t seem to disappear even in the darkest moments. I have come to the conclusion that hope is something I have held on to since I was a little girl. And that little girl is nowhere close to giving that up. In fact, I think that little girl is getting stronger. If you have fallen apart more times than you would like to admit or even count, I hope you know that when you choose to put those pieces back together and put your best foot forward, that means something. It shows something. Hope is a very tricky thing because it can lead to a lot of wasted moments without action. But it is also the most critical ingredient in giving ourselves the patience we need to ensure that when those pieces are returned, we like that version of ourselves we have created.
Here’s to a better new year! (Hopefully).
