year’s end

This month’s Mercury in Retrograde really fucked me up badly. Everything started crashing down and it’s as if all the bad mojo of this year has been rammed up into a wall, represented by the last day of 2017.

I’ve been saying that this has been a challenging year and, I’m afraid to admit, that I was not up for the challenge. I faltered. I screwed up. I failed. Horrendously.

In need of a clean slate, I shaved my facial hair to just end the year fresh

But I am not out of the race. That much I can say. I still managed to score enough points to still be in the race next year but with a serious handicap.

Things are going to have to change in a huge way next year. I keep saying that but I have to cash my reality check and pay what I owe. And I owe a lot. I’ve been living in my head for almost more than half the year and things have slipped by me and I have not been at my best.

And I cannot keep blaming it on my struggles last year dealing with kidney failure. At some point, I’m going to have to be an adult and be accountable for my wrong choices and be responsible to fix everything that I’ve broken around me.

I’ve learned a lot and I’ve seen a horrible side of my self that I didn’t even remember was there. It’s funny having read an article on astrology about what the signs were meant to learn in 2016, 2017, and next year and it was so spot on for me when it talked about Pisces.

Read: What You Were Supposed to Learn Between 2016 and 2018, Based on Your Zodiac Sign (Thought Catalog).

This year, 2017, was about learning to find my passion again. It says:

Over the past few years, if you’ve been less than thrilled with life it’s because you’ve felt your passions were suppressed by the weight of responsibility and loss. This is the year you rediscovered what you really love, or noticed that maybe you made a wrong choice with a move, a job, or a personal life decision.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t writing that was my passion, but teaching. I am finding my love for writing through teaching and realizing that what I love most about the art and the craft is the sharing part.

I have not been generous. I have been so burned by my losses and the responsibilities of just surviving that I forgot to be generous. I’m writing for me and I never wrote for me. I wrote for my audience. It helped me to do so but helping me was never the point. I had to say and something to share with people.

That is the joy of what I do. And I want to get that back.

It’s why I’ve barely written here this month because I’ve been coming to terms with what this whole year meant to me. I’ve been trying to find who I am now that everything is said and done.

2017 was monumental in so many ways but it was also humbling and grounding and it’s time to dust myself off, stop blaming everyone, and just get the work done.