Happy New Year | Life Lessons Learned the Hard Way, Part 1

So begins a series I have had bouncing around in my mind for some time now– a summary of the last few years: life lessons learned the hard way.  Here I present to you Lesson 1: Better is Not the Same as Good.

——-

Wow.  It’s hard to believe it’s really the first day of 2015.

I can’t say that I’m sad to see 2014 go; while it was better than my terrible 2013, it was a far cry from “good”.  2014 was largely a year of picking up the pieces of myself that 2013 left me in, and trying to slowly put myself back together.

I think one of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn over the last few years, but especially this year, is this: better is not the same as good.

I feel like this is a lesson that I have had to learn over and over and over again, but this year definitely drove it home for me.  I kept finding myself feeling frustrated this year, thinking “I’m in such a better place than I was last time this year, why am I not happy?  What’s wrong with me?  Am I just someone who can’t be satisfied?”.  And I’ve fretted over those last two questions enough to last me a lifetime.  I often worry that I am asking for more than the world can give, more than any reasonable person can expect.  It’s incredibly frustrating to do have done so much healing and self-work over the course of a year, but to still feel deeply dissatisfied with how my life is.  It’s just very disheartening, and sometimes it’s hard to believe that things will ever actually get better-than-completely-shitty, that things could actually feel good or that I could simply feel content on something of a regular basis.  I know that life has its downs, and it always will, but the “downs” of the last 5 years have been frequent and various levels of devastating, and I’m just desperately ready for a positive change.  Sometimes I worry that it’s no longer possible.

And then… then I remember how I felt during the summer of 2013, at Butch Voices, a brief high point in a very hard year.  I remember how different the Bay Area was than the bible belt.  I remember how much safer I felt.  I remember not feeling constantly on guard, and not getting harassed in restrooms, and not being scowled at or stared down in public.  I remember the enormous weight that that took off of my shoulders; the weight of more than a decade of the constant homophobic microaggressions (and outright aggressions) of the bible belt.  I remember what it was like to meet so many other butch and trans-identified people (many of whom were local residents), and what it felt like to have a rare moment of not being surrounded by cisgender people nearly 24/7.
Granted, I know some of those feelings are directly related to the life-changing experience that was attending the Butch Voices conference, but I spent enough time outside of the conference to know that the Bay Area had a radically different feel than what I have grown up with.  I’ve spent most of the last year and a half trying very hard to hold onto that feeling, to remember and believe that a place exists where I can feel safe, where I can begin my healing work in earnest (i.e. without ongoing trauma).

Here’s to getting there in 2015.

Happy New Year, everyone.

 

—

P.S.  Writing about this subject is pretty hard for me and I’m feeling pretty vulnerable, so please be gentle with any comments.  Thank you.