Another Year.

That’s a loaded year.

It’s about that time again for my yearly another year older, another year wiser. That another year definitely have a different meaning now.

It’s been a year since we’ve been in quarantine. It’s been a year since I’ve been WFH and not being able to go anywhere. It’s another year where I’m spending my special week at home and not going anywhere or doing much of anything.

Hope and light is within reach. Vaccines are out and anyone 16+ will be eligible within the week.

Will that change anything? Will that take us back to a normal where I can go places and enjoy things? I don’t know.

Here we are. Sigh. Another year older, another year wiser.

42.

I think. I’ll be 42.

I’ll be 42.

So, 41, I bid you adieu and 42, what you got?

Day 2.

Day of.

42.

42.

42.

I’m 42.

A new number.

Just turned a new number.

What is there to say? What is there to write?

I don’t know.

41.

It was a year. It was a year like no other with the pandemic and how things went, but it was a year like any other.

I lived. I learned. I endured.

Over a year of being constrained at home, not being able to go anywhere or have a true break. It definitely was a test to my mental health.

It was a year of severe mental stress and heartache with Pickles.

Loss.

I’ve dealt with the loss of so many people that were close to me. I’m still affected by the loss of my father and I think he’ll always be a hole in my heart.

I never had to deal with the loss of a pet. I never had to make a decision to end the life of something that had been such a large part of my life, my identity for such a long time.

It was painful.

I knew it would be a decision I would have to make, but I didn’t think that I would have made it like that.

I wish the circumstances were better, but life.

41.

41.

Loss.

Growth.

I don’t know what I expected this post to be like.

I usually would sit at Volcano and write. It would take a day or two to finish and it’ll be some kind of conscious flow of what I thought my last number was like.

With the pandemic, I don’t know.

It feels like I don’t know how to do this anymore.

I don’t know how to just do anymore.

What is life, anymore?

What is a number anymore?

There’s no demarcation as when I was 41 or when I am 42. There’s no real marker but a social construct of a calendar.

There’s no physical marker.

All runs the same.

The distinction is small.

I am small.

41.

I persevered, worked, and grew as best that I could. I did the best that I allowed myself given what life is at that moment.

I tried to take care of myself mentally. I tried to cope with things.

There were times when I didn’t handle things well, but ultimately it worked out in the end.

I’m in a place that seems like what normal was.

I’m doing what I do best and that is taking things, taking life, a day-at-a-time.

That’s all that I can do.

That’s all anyone can do.

I think that’s what I learned most about being 41.

Just take things slow. Take things as they come. Don’t think of anything big. Don’t make a big fuss of things if they don’t work out.

It’s just…..just.

There’s no if and or buts about it.

This is life.

41.

Days blur.

They blend and mash into each other, so it feels like it’s just been a single day on repeat.

41.

It was the year of a single day.

Life on repeat.

42.

A new number.

I don’t know what it will bring.

I don’t know if it’ll be any different from the last year, but who knows?

The future is blank.

It’s all unwritten.

42 is a blank canvas like any other new number and for me to paint.

I shed with the old and chip and chip to find the new, the me.

My essence.

I thought about things the other day, knowing that I’ll be writing this eventually.

I thought about the analogy of my life, me, a person as being an onion and I’m shedding my layers as time goes by, slowly, reveling better layers of me.

Then I realize I’m not an onion.

I’m a rock.

I’m a boulder, sitting at the edge of a bluff being crushed by waves.

Day after day, waves crash into me. Small pieces of me break off and dissolve and become smaller rocks, pebbles, sand.

The weak pieces of me crumble with each crash.

Day in, day out.

I’m a boulder. Some days, years, larger pieces will fall.

But in the end, we’ll all weathered all of the stormy weather. We’ll come out different, but in the end, all that stands of you are the parts that are your strongest.

I am a boulder.

I stand tall.

I stand firm.

I brace against the waves.

42.

What storms will I weather?

What will I become at the end?

All I know, a large chunk of me broke off in 41, but I’m still here, stronger than ever, ready to be more defined.

42.

Crash into me.

Bring it.