The Year That Taught Me To Believe

I think about Frodo and the ring often. If you know me personally, that won’t seem too off brand. I often think of my life in fairy tales and literature. I remind myself of favorite characters who give up all hope, abandon their quest, and fall to pieces right before rising again with a stronger resolution.

This was the year I crumbled at the foot of Mount Doom, ready to let the ring take me

For as long as I can remember, I thought of the start of the new year as a fresh start. A blank page with which to fill with new goals and dreams. Twelve unscathed months to make my own. I now see that that view doesn’t fit anymore. I entered 2020 as many of us did with the normal mindset of another year to make good on the things I wanted to do. And we all know 2020 had other plans.

This year, I plan to enter taking with me all I have gained in this year of immense loss. For most of the year, I experienced nothing but loss. I lost every plan I had made. I lost my grandmother. I lost the ability to hug my mother (because of her job). I lost my job. I lost my insurance, my financial security. The list goes on and on and I know I am lucky in many ways compared to so many others. But this isn’t about the loss.

This is about the gain.

I stopped believing early on. I had worked so hard, dreamed so hard, to get to this year where I finally was able to take off. I gave up when it seemed it all had vanished. The truth is, it hadn’t. It was all present and within me. I wasn’t seeing the forest for the trees. I was seeing only the specifics of what I had lost. I didn’t believe it would turn around for me. This was it; this was the end.

I became Frodo on the edge of Mordor. How could I go on when so much had happened? How could any of this turn around into something good? My losses danced around my head in some type of terrifying bonfire ritual, cackling as they grew in numbers.

Then I saw sparks from another fire.

The fire of the fact I could still write in spite of everything crashing around me. I had trouble reading, concentrating on small tasks. But I could write. And so I wrote. My stomach unclenched as I wrote. My mind whirred and sang, drowning out the party the losses were throwing. I began to believe bit by bit that this was something I was meant to do. Something I could do no matter what.

I started to sink deeper into myself. I listen to what panicked me and made me break. I discovered my voice again. I found the girl I had lost under years of disappointments and struggles. She was still there, sitting curled in a corner, waiting for a light to guide her out of the dark. There was broken glass around littered around her, glittering in the glow of hope I was slowly welcoming back in. A brave, bold girl who knew who she was. Even if she had to walk across the broken pieces with the danger they may cut her again, she rose and came back to me.

I became Frodo again with Sam in his ear, telling him to get up. Reminding him of the great stories of fighting for the good. Telling him that if he can’t make it, he will carry him.

I was carried by my Sams I am so lucky to have. I was carried by my inner Sam, too. The one who told me to stay the course, do what I love, find the joy within it. When I wrote with that in mind, I started to check off goals. I took a look at my goals for 2020, a page in my notebook I had ignored since March, and I achieved several of them. I thought I had given up, lost all my belief, and everything was lost.

Instead, I saw the forest for the trees for the first time in many years. So many trees. I’ve walked through discovering each one. I’ve walked with an explorer’s mind of seeing every inch of forest around me. I stopped thinking about my specific goals/plans and started to do what I love because I love it. I didn’t even realize I was doing it until now.

I drew The Tower card for the first time this year. The Tower is a dreaded card though I have a new found love for it. The Tower represents destruction, danger, chaos or sudden upheaval. It is a picture of a tower burning after being struck by lightning and people falling from it. It is intense. But all is not lost with this card. It is about rebuilding. Sometimes things need to be destroyed to be rebuilt. I needed to crumble to put myself back together. I needed to break free. I pulled it again recently on the Great Conjunction. It seems I am going through some growth for a while and for once, I am not fearing it.

I had forgotten how to believe. How to live my life with joy and love. I write about belief constantly and here I was, giving up entirely. If we remember the fairy tales, the folklore and stories of our childhood, all our heroes have this moment. I now believe 2020 would have brought this on me even without everything that has happened. I am not grateful for the horrors this year has held. That is not what this blog is about. I am not grateful for what I achieved in spite of this brutal year. Surviving it is achievement enough for us all.

I am grateful I still believe. I thought it was lost in the debris of all my plans. I have now learned that plans do not matter in the end. You can plan your entire life to the letter and it can burn away in a second. It can be a tower struck by lightning. I have to keep believing there is value in the rubble. There is treasure hidden beneath the dust. You pick it up, brush it off, and keep going.

I enter 2021 not with goals but with belief that if I do what I love with the people I love around me, I’ll be just fine.