Been broken all my life

Smile through the pain

That’s not working for me no more

Feels fitting that post #86 is the last post of 2023, this is going to be a letter to 2023, letting it all out in hopes of starting 2024 off correct. I’m not usually one of those new year, new me assholes, BUT, nothing changes if nothing changes.

Dear 2023,

You sad sack of shit. God you were a real cock sucker of a year. I went into 2023 knowing I’d have to put my dog down, but the last 3 months of 2022 ate such a bag of dicks that I figured 2023 was my redemption. 13 days into this shit year, I did a stage at Alcove and got offered the job, it was the best day I’d had in months, finally getting to work at a place that I’ve been eyeing to work since a few months before it even opened. I started on February 8th and it was a solid first couple of weeks, then, it was time to put Presley down. I took her to be put down on February 27th, the worst fucking day of my life. I didn’t take any time off from work, in fact I did the opposite, I took a consulting job on top of being full time at alcove to distract me from what I was feeling, what a mistake. All the feelings have caught up with me, and I haven’t proper left the house since July 3rd. This year was filled with terrible anxiety, panic attacks in waves, and nothing but negativity. This year took everything I loved, and feared, and made it all disappear. I need to go in 2024 in a different mindset, because looking back on 2023, not only did it eat a giant bag of dicks, but I really feel like I failed. This is the first year in 10 that I’ve felt like a failure. I couldn’t leave the house, I couldn’t work, I couldn’t be kind to myself, I couldn’t rebound, it was the year of fucking couldn’t. Well 2024 I’m coming in hot. It’s the year of could, and can, and fucking will. 2024 will be the year I take back control from the anxiety, it’ll be the year I work towards everything I’ve ever wanted, it’ll be the year I get all that I want. I won’t be a prisoner anymore, I can’t be. The way I’ve been living is not a way I can continue to live, I don’t have it in me, so we change. Nothing changes if nothing changes. 2024 is working on my higher self, working on my mental health, my physical health, getting back on track with what I want out of my career, training Jiu Jitsu. A reckoning is coming.

It’s been a heavy year in retrospect.

We always hurt the ones, that we love best.

And the ones that hurt us most, couldn’t care less.

It’s been a heavy year in retrospect.

86: 2023

Where the skies are gold not gray,

J.