Dear 2023

Normally, I’d be writing to you at the end of the year to thank you for what you gave me. So, really, this letter is very premature and I should be addressing todays to 2022. However, I feel I’ve conveyed everything I can about my feelings towards the turbulence of the last 12 months, so instead I’d thought I’d focus forwards.

I caught sight of you around November last year and began telling myself that when I finally reached you, all the negative feelings around the year I’d had, the anxiety and overwhelm, would be left behind in the hands of 2022 and you’d reach out yours and off we’d skip down the 12-month road of a new year, new me. So far, that hasn’t happened. It turns out, you don’t bring a magically clean canvas with you for me to start afresh at designing my life. Your entrance is more subtle than that. It happens overnight…literally, and I can only forgive my brain and my body for expecting them to acknowledge your arrival with a revived sense of calm. To them, Saturday simply became Sunday and there’s nothing special about Sunday.

So I’ve decided to write to you, perhaps as a form of what I believe is sometimes called ‘Manifestation’ – making something real through the sheer act of focusing on it, visualising what I want, or in this instance, writing it down. This is not something I’d say I believe in, however, I’m willing to use it as a base to put my desire for our 12 months together out into the world in the hope it gives my year some positive focus. So let me begin:

1. I will do more things for my own sense of joy. The last year (at least) has been driven by my crippling anxiety’s need for me to feel I’m being ‘productive’ – whatever that may mean – all the time. As a result, I have chronically failed to give myself permission to just sit and do something that could possibly have no other purpose than giving me enjoyment. As a child, I would sit for hours, when there wasn’t homework to be done, curled up reading a book. I didn’t feel guilty. I didn’t feel there was anything more ‘worthwhile’ to be doing. I want to go back to that. I want to feel that sitting and reading my book just because I feel like it, and in spite of the inevitable to-do list that will never end, is valid. That goes the same for doing some mindful colouring, cross-stitching, baking something just because…If I don’t give myself permission to do these things when I feel like it, or even when I don’t but my anxiety could really do with the downtime, then I might as well throw all my books out of the window and my craft unit onto the street. I have to confess there have been many times since last summer when I’ve envied the version of me post-surgery, lying in hospital or at home in bed, with nothing more important in the world than simply resting, doing things that relax me and make me happy while my body recovered. 2023, I do not need to wish myself in pain. there is always time for me and my list of ‘things for joy’ stuck to my fridge and it doesn’t only come around when I’m unwell. And if it feels like there isn’t, I’m determined this year, to make some – to pause, to say no to things, to leave more empty spaces in my calendar, to look at my list and book in more, much-needed, time with myself or even to just stop moving, sit down somewhere comfy and breathe.

2. I will prioritize my mental health. Sometimes I wish that I could experience walking through the day in someone else’s body. I want to know if how I feel is normal or whether there is an existence out there where butterflies do not life 24/7 in my chest and tummy and my brain is not running at 100 miles a minute. I briefly remember discovering that this reality did exist when I was first medicated. I became aware all of a sudden that the pit in my stomach had gone…oh the irony of the momentary anxiety this caused. But then I celebrated. Oh, the joy of not feeling constantly on the edge of a precipice or at the doors to an exam room, with the knowledge that there is no exam to relieve the feeling once it’s over. I remember that relief and I want more than anything to regain it. I want to feel less overwhelmed by the world and terrified for the future. I want to be excited about things to come. How will I do this? Well, to start, I’m going back to regular appointments with my therapist. I’m making myself a safe space, weekly at first, to look towards when the days and weeks are feeling too much.

I’m also going to review and reassess the medication first prescribed to me in December 2015 and that I still take daily. I’m no medical expert, but at this point, it feels more like a habit than anything else, as I lie here in the warmth of my bed, writing this letter, listening to my brain, with my body physically still feeling like I’m being threatened by a bear around my caveman campfire. I will never feel ashamed that my brain requires help but I do feel perhaps we need to assess whether the current help is the right one. As we walk this journey together 2023, I want to feel like my brain and I are becoming more connected, and that, as stated in a previous letter addressed to the rascal itself, my anxiety and I can become companions, rather than rivals.

3. I will embrace the unknown. Last year felt like a year of unexpected changes that my anxiety struggled to manage internally even while I seemingly dealt with them pretty smoothly from the outside. Although my heart was set on your arrival bringing consistency and no unexpected surprises, that is not realistic. I already had change lined up before you even got here: a new career path in the pipeline. I guess what I want from you now instead is to help me approach these changes more as exciting adventures to try, rather than possible regrets in the making. I want to be able to tell my brain – I guess that’s partly what this letter is aiming to do – that nothing is permanent. There isn’t harm in trying something new just because it scares me. The worst that happens? The new work isn’t for me…I was wrong. I step back. I reassess and I move forward. The best that happens: I discover a new passion and a new source of joy and fulfilment in my day-to-day. What’s more, I want to remove the pressure I constantly put on myself to be ‘perfect’ and to need to know everything from day 1. If I wasn’t slightly scared, that would be more of a concern. It is ok, good even, to enter the unknown with the openness to learn.

There are other unknowns in the year ahead: my living situation – where and who with, my medical dramas – do I choose to have surgery or not? Will I inevitably end up back in hospital again, my favourite nasal accessory dangling from my face? Some things can not be planned or known ahead of time. This year, 2023, I’m going to be ok with that.

4. Meet new people and start dating again. It’s been over 4.5 years and it’s scary. A large chunk of my 20’s has centred around my relationship with my best friend. It’s hard to imagine a life lived with someone else. And yes, my mental health is pretty low right now, and yes, this year feels like another year of changes, but the reality is, I like meeting new people and getting to know them. My side goal of dating is to try all the best hot chocolates in London so I figure, what’s the downside? Plus, if I succeed at following through with the first item on this list, perhaps I’ll meet a like-minded companion, who shares in something that brings me joy, along the way.

5. Focus on my own path rather than where others are or are going. I want to remind myself every time I open Facebook or Instagram, that I’m never seeing the whole picture. I’m seeing the highlights but not the moments in between. What’s more, there is no rush. 26-year-old me felt like time was not on her side - that I should be settled in a ‘career’ and a ‘relationship’. I don’t need to be though. Firstly, it’s ok to change my mind and try new things. No one, single job needs to be my one and only for the rest of my working life. Maybe the last 4 years, nannying was my thing. Maybe 2023 will show me that, for now at least, maternity nursing is what I love. Secondly, if I’d found the right relationship to be in right now, for being ready to settle down (whatever that means), then that’s where I’d be. But I’m not. Because I haven’t. Others have and that’s ok. They’re on their path and I’m here, bumbling along, on mine. I’ve got a lifetime ahead of me and if I spend it looking sideways at other people living theirs, I’ll miss out on what’s right in front of me and moving forward in mine.

And that’s pretty much it. Yes, 2022 was a whirlwind but it’s behind me. Now is the time to look ahead. You didn’t make the entrance I’d hoped for, 2023, bringing with you a whole different mind and body to take over from the broken ones of the previous 365 days. But you arrived none-the-less as you inevitably would. You brought the possibility of things changing for the better, new adventures, and another 365 days to learn to love the person I should probably aim to love first and foremost: me.

2023, here’s to you

Onwards and upwards,