New Year, New Neesh?

I know what we’re thinking. “She’s not moving anymore?!”

Don’t get too excited. It’s still a work in progress.

The thrill of shifting and giving it all away on a regular basis is still one that daunts me with temptation. The general thought of rejoining the souls of those that mean the world to me in the multitude of cities… Riddles me with so much joy that I am surprised I have not jumped in my Jeep already.

But no, the effort to maintain in one place has been a long work-in-progress (and a quite successful one if one may add – amidst all of the inner-city moves)

The quote-on-quote new Neesh that we are speaking of today may quite simply be the one that actually considers taking part in this resolution BS. –Which by the way does not count until 3-5 business days following NYE if you work in restaurants. There. I said it. It is law.

The mind-breaking question is what that resolution could be. It’s dawned on myself recently – as recent as I am typing in this moment – and I’ve had to reflect quite a lot on these past 365 days to do so.

I began the year with Covid, in isolation with my BFF of 15 years and my partner in our mouldy, rotting home; missing the job interview that I had been scheduled for and having to admit to my family that I had this illness throughout all of our holiday festivities. Great start.

But!!!!! I landed the job, took over one of the most challenging locations and pushed through the 1.5 hours of daily driving, long (long) work days/weeks and really found myself learning to fall in love with my restaurant more than I’d ever thought possible.

I moved out of the home with my now ex-partner (I say this reluctantly – long story, awkward ending) only to move in to my dream townhome with said best friend. Only to then have fallen into a co-dependant situation-ship with someone new, to have m relationship with my new roomie fall to pieces, my restaurant feeling as though it is on fire, illness within my family, and my inevitable dream-home life come to a sudden halt.

Through all of this, the chaos ensued further, ensuring that Murphy’s law genuinely came to fruition and my mental health had been so far dragged into utter darkness that I had no genuine belief that I would resurface (yet again).

Oh how it all seems to go so horribly wrong in the moment.

In this moment, I opted to choose to line up some of those beautiful small moments of gratitude. Y’know, the ones that keep us dark & moody types motivated to try again each day. So here we go;

1. Singing in the car on a drive in the fading sun, only to wind up at some path to walk with no intention
2. Sunsets and sunrises over the ocean
3. The feeling of wind blowing on the ferry while reading a novel and listening to music, watching kids get excited looking over the rails with no land in their site.
4. Fires atop of a mountain overlooking a beautiful lake with some absolutely incredible people whom all melded together beautifully
5. Hammocks, fires, great company and a competitive game (or six) of crib or dice
6. Sitting atop the Jeep in a lightning storm in the middle of a lake on a little inlet
7. Kayaking a lake in October, warm and cozy with sun still beating down
8. Watching the growth of camaraderie in the people that I’ve put my heart and soul into, seeing their genuine care and humility never fade
9. The development of those whom I rooted for, seeing the potential that I believed in show through and shine
10. 5am quiet mornings with cat snuggles and hot coffee
11. The ability to read, write, run, scream, cook, clean, love, feel, think and breathe
12. Strangers and old friends returning who fill those quiet voids of solitude that you did not realize were hurting you
13. Returning home and feeling as though I had never left, only missing my people more, but knowing that the relationships will never fade
14. FaceTime catch-ups, groups calls, dance parties
15. The strength to adapt continuously, regardless of how it feels today

My goal this year is to focus in on the communication that I’ve begun to build, to revisit my past relationships and genuinely ask myself why and what I did to make the shift that in-turn ended all of the “what could have beens”. Yes, I full-heartedly believe that these relationships ended for a purpose. But I do need to ask myself why it is that they did end. At one point in life, one must realize that it isn’t typical to continue into your 30s serial-dating while (and that WHILE is very relevant to this dictation) contemplating why it is that you are consistently alone, feeling lost, invalidated.

I want to ask myself those hard questions that no person wants to visit.

Is it me? Do I want commitment? Am I changing my thought pattern of relationship? Do I even have the capacity to care for another person?

In all of my years, I’ve given my absolute everything to ensure that other’s cups are full, that they feel loved. To such a point that I lose that capacity and begin to restrict myself emotionally to what I genuinely deserve. By no means am I expressing perfectionism in this case – Believe me, my phone notifications are pure evidence of my lack of dedication to everyone. Shoot me for loving all of you. HOWEVER what I am getting at here is simple; I want to be willing to put myself first in as many plausible ways that it no longer feels exhaustive to give my all-loving self to the people that I love – and if that means finally expressing my needs, desires and boundaries to the person that lays naked in my bed with me then so be it. But first I need to allow myself to genuinely understand what it is that I actually want from that person.

I’m rambling now.

I think the entirety of this is summarized in expressing how chaotic 2022 had been for myself, how traumatically emotional it had been returning home for the first time, seeing the shifts in my social life after such a hiatus, and having to quickly re-learn that I still have loved ones here, all while being too occupied to even give love to those that offered it, let alone those that I should be a better friend to. We all deserve to love, we all deserve those little moments of gratitude; and with my desire to learn to stay in one place, I most certainly believe that its time for me to learn to assert myself through healthy communication and quite possibly admitting to myself that I just very well might be ready to tell some person (relax) that I am requiring more than a relationship for convenience.

(Even typing that made me nauseous and riddled with anxiety)

So alas, we ring in the new year, tired, broken, a little bit excited, a lot a bit anxious and maybe even positive about the potential for a stronger and better version of who I have always been; destructive. JK. Let’s go with forever rebuilding, reflecting and reasserting.

I wish you all the best of luck with your 2023, cheers to the chaos and passion that it takes to continue driving yourself into betterment.

– Neesh