Finally time for a recap. Time to go back to the end of last year and check out all the ideas, goals and hopes for the year and either give myself a pat on the back or curl into a fetus shape and cry. I am only kidding of course, it’s nothing like that. It’s just nice to sit still for a while and ponder over whether you are happy or better said – balanced in your life. Whether where you are is where you want to be. Whether the things that you are able to control and change are going in the right direction. Or maybe standing still, if that feels right. Time to think whether the circumstances that are outside of your control do not interfere with your personal life too much.
Even without looking into my diary I can say I feel so much better than I did this time last year.
My goodbye to 2020 looked like this:
I have been high.
I have been low.
I have been lonely,
yet never alone.
I lost my creativity,
I lost my flow.
Yet, I am sure, I know!
They are still my own.
I love you though,
more than you will ever know.
I wrote this from the bottom of my heart with the biggest sincerity. I felt so lost. I didn’t write, I didn’t practice yoga, I barely found myself in a flow of an activity without noticing the time. Never being alone has become my obsession and the less I had it, the lonelier I felt.
Whilst this continued into 2021, things have certainly turned around. If I could put 2021 into a poem, it would look more like this:
I found my creativity.
I found my flow.
More importantly,
I found my balance though.
Now I know,
they’ve never gone.
I miss quiet.
I miss home.
I miss being alone,
but I know,
time runs fast,
and they grow.
Faster than you will ever know.
At the end of 2020 I wrote:
I am here to tell you that I not only have accomplished absolutely nothing, I have also felt pretty shit for a better part of this year. 2020 was shit. Let’s start with that. I feel weary, tired and defeated.
It’s so important for me to look back and see how fluid things are. How easily life changes in a span of one year. It doesn’t have to be a circumstantial change, it can only happen in your mind and it’s so extreme. So significant. I am so grateful. Going back to these texts, I can feel those words and it’s vivid. I have not forgotten how bad some days were, but just having had this experience, I know how good it is now. Despite the lack of sleep, despite not having free time, despite not being able to see family, despite being worried about societies going into voluntary totalitarian regimes, despite still having an occasional cry in the car – I AM BALANCED. Yes, everything that I wrote last year regarding the environment and freedom still bothers me a lot, but it doesn’t stop me from living my life.
2021 will forever be the year Sebastian came to this world and just like with Josefina, the love was instant and overpowering. I not only got a healthy baby, but also my body back. Two gifts in one. The terrible pregnancy ended and whilst it took a while to recover, I feel like myself again. It was so worth it. He swam (literally) into our world like he was always part of it. Five months in, I don’t know what life used to be like without him. I know I was getting more sleep that’s for sure. Not having to work full time, I spend time with Josie outside of the morning rush and evening bedtime routine and I have time to notice what a wonderful human she is. Just like a typical mother, I am constantly in awe of what she does and says. I think she is quite possibly the most beautiful person in this world and I don’t care about being a walking cliche when I say that I love them more than life, to the fucking moon and back and thousand times around. No number of carefree weekends, uninterrupted pottery time and cups of coffee finished slowly and quietly could ever make up for not having these two.
Whilst this will always be something that I have to adjust to, I think I have finally made my peace with being a parent. Not just because I have been sitting in my favourite cafe for the last hour knowing I don’t have to rush back because Lukas is on duty. I have also spent a good part of this year really thinking about parenting. Not about the type of cloth nappies I want to use, but about what I want to imprint in my children. Thinking about the generations and generations of traumatised people that have been screamed at, spanked, punished and told they have to be good girls/boys and not to be naughty by parents who loved them more than anything, but didn’t know any better. I am constantly explaining, apologising, rethinking, rectifying and trying better next time and feeling immense peace when it does work. Hoping that one day when my kids make a mistake or a bad choice, they will run to me instead of away from me. One of the side effects of this, is looking back at my childhood and slowly sealing all the wounds. They might resurface again in form of a stressful yell, but maybe weaker and weaker over time.
This post wouldn’t be complete without mentioning pottery. Just like with yoga, I found myself in an immediate flow. To the point of seeing my future in pottery. I know it might sound funny, but it’s true. With the first three hour course I did, this was decided. Whilst the other girls talked, I quietly worked and three hours felt like three minutes. I knew this love affair is here to stay. I have since completed one online hand building course and wheel throwing course in a new studio that just opened up in our neighbourhood. If you think that a new studio opening up five minutes from my house is a coincidence, I like to think it’s a simple law of attraction. The universe knew I needed it and gave me this gift of time away from the family in a form of a beautiful airy space and a hobby that I love.
Just to tick an item of my list. I would love to express gratitude towards people in my life. How amazing it is that we don’t need years to feel an immediate connection. How you can find yourself sitting at a table sharing personal memories with a group of people that last year would have been near strangers and feel at ease. I am grateful for the friendships we form in adulthood. Through similar lifestyle, hobbies, kids, outlook on life. I only have one condition now and it’s kindness and an open mind. Thank you beautiful people for the talks, the walks, the pottery afternoons, the coffees and the connections we have made in a world of disagreement.
What would I like to accomplish this year? Honestly I just want to feel free. Enjoy the moments, instead of the highs and lows really focus on the balance and accept that some days are harder than others whilst fully knowing that everything is just a phase and that nothing last forever. The good and the bad.
Happy twenty twenty two my wonderful friends, may the odds be forever in your favour.
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