it's been a year

It’s been a year.

It’s been a year and I feel the need to write about it sporadically on this webpage which I probably shouldn’t be paying for and often forget to post on because, well, it’s been a year.

It’s been a year of growth and pain and growing pains.

Some people grow to move forward and some people grow to bounce back and I’ve been both of those people this year.

I was diagnosed with iron deficiency anemia last November, still fighting off anorexia from the months before. I was scanned for cancers in January, poked and prodded and placed under anesthesia and MRI machines. I was pronounced "probably experiencing an unknown something," by doctors who reminded me my health is not promised even though I am young.

I was pierced by more needles in February after my iron levels dropped once more then assigned a follow-up infusion on my birthday, which made me cry.

It’s been a year of hurting and hoping and healing eventually.

It's been a year of finding ways to quell the pain — through ice baths and beach trips and eyes closed and arms open and legs moving and music blasting and mind silenced – without making it go away. I'll continue to feel it before I heal it, I guess, even though sometimes those feelings suggest I'm never going to heal properly.

It’s been a year of freelancing and financing and forgetting to submit my estimated tax payments.

I was laid off from my first big girl job in February, which back then felt like the kind of unexpected disaster I should have been prepared for and now feels like the kind of promotion where they also give you more vacation days.

I’ve been freelancing for ten months now and am on track to surpass the annual income offered to me by my previous employer, who handed me my first salaried position in 2022 after onboarding me as a contractor in 2021 after I graduated college via YouTube in 2020, and I’m proud of that. All of that.

But being my own boss requires self-discipline and trusting others to pay me requires delusion, so it's been a year of trial and error, balancing and falling off, finding traction, creating routines, breaking them.

It’s been a year of locating danger zones and re-entering them.

I signed up for a half marathon in May because they told me they hadn’t detected another disease (yet) and I told myself I was sick of being sick and missed my favorite hobby. I hurt my foot two weeks before the race though which came as a bigger “what the fuck” than my other anticipated diagnoses – until a doctor not only cleared me to compete but recommended I try harder; run farther.

It’s been a year of running farther.

It’s been a year of running farther, faster, reveling in it, and then panicking, wondering if I’m experiencing a high or a traumatic cardiac event. It’s been a year of confusing dehydration with iron attacks (which, the health reporter in me should clarify, aren’t a thing), downplaying my achievements, apologizing for myself and then taking it back.

It’s been a year of missing the marks.

Of trying to do it all and coming up short and languishing in the shame of mediocrity. It’s been a year of fighting like hell to be OK while secretly wanting to be exceptional.

It’s been a year of changing perspectives.

Of fixating on individual parts and forgetting about the big picture, then standing so far back that the details are blurred.

It’s been a year of other things, too.

It’s been a year of dead cockroaches and unfinished art projects and polar plunges and citi-bike memberships. Lost wallets and broken dishes and selling clothes on Poshmark. Marathons and movie nights and mending broken relationships. Sparkling apple ciders and zoo animals and walks around botanical gardens. Park picnics and cloudy skies and good friends and big love.

It’s been a year that I want to keep going, to bleed into next year, not fade into the past.