I should have known that. I should have known it before I got to know myself.
I know it now. It's never going to be easy. Not ever.
Right now everything in my life consists of too many tasks for me to do, and not enough time to do them.
I've decided to have 3 goals for 2015 and call it a day.
Goal #1: Take refresher driving lessons + Buy. A. Car.
Goal #2: Get something published. A novel. A short story. A haiku. Anything.
Goal #3: Finish Degree #1. Finish Masters #1.
From about 2012 to 2014 was the worst most trying period of my life. I thought my time back home isolated in the countryside was bad, but this time has been worse, because I have been pushed, stretched and tortured by my life. I have been sacked twice, I have endured god awful jobs, been subjected to hatred, contempt and racism, I have had all of my dreams and initial aspirations torn apart, and every shred of optimism driven from me.
I turned 26 without any real dreams left. I watched as all of my old classmates passed university, acquired dream jobs, purchased houses, got engaged, had babies, and even wed.
I had to watch it all. Their elation and my deprivation.
And so really, what can I hope for in 2015?
I read my yearly horoscope and it seemed so accurate about everything that's been going on with my life, and promised real change and happiness for next year that I almost, let myself hope and believe and wish.
I do think things are getting better.
But maybe better will never be right, and I don't know if I'll ever be the happy person I used to be, let alone the optimistic but sarcastic girl I used to be. Life can change us, and I have been worn down with a tenacious tide into a woman who no longer hopes to dream.
A woman who doesn't dare to dream.
I have been knocked down so many times, and I have got back up each and every time. But each time I got back up, my knees wobbled, almost buckled.
I feel a few more years away from being done.
A few years away from wanting a quiet room with a view of the sea and sand. I feel myself slipping from this way of life, content to know the secret: that some of us can have our dreams come true, whilst some of us can only watch as others' do.
Of course it hurts. It did hurt. And there are days when it still hurts, when I still suffer and wish that I could wish, and dream and hope and desire. Wish that for once life would actually measure up to life's expectations. Wish that I would stop wishing for everything I don't have and be grateful for what I do have.
But it doesn't work. Not for me.
Sometimes the path seems so clear I can see it. I can't say what the path is; the magic will be lost there. But I can see it, I can feel it, and I have always known it.
I am supposed to be a writer. I am supposed to do something amazing.
Whether I do or not, is simply a variable result of my existence. I no longer expect. I no longer hope.
I just try and do. The words and the pain and the questions, just go on, and on and on.
And I keep writing, trying to find the answer.
2015, please...maybe...be easy on me. Be easy on me.