Another year. Today, like last year on this date, I reflect on where I have been and where I am now.

Last year, however, I was in California facing the real possibility that a person I love and admire would lose her life to cancer. It felt completely unfair, because disease does not care about fairness, and that piece of her experience, discussed in private moments, over tea and toast with Marmite, that part of us that wants there to be reason and rationale for the horrible things that occur, struck me then, and now, as the element of my own path with depression (oh, and life generally) with which I struggle.

Deep gratitude to my family, my partner, and most of all my friends, who have listened and helped me through the darkest moments, or the times when I was stuck in a loop of pointless thinking, unable to get out of my own way, unable to release worries that cannot serve me. Deep gratitude to my therapist, who has seen me through times when I could not articulate complete thoughts, through blind rage, tears that do not stop, and sees me now, as we move into a new place where I may actually find some understanding, not of my reactions to various things (we work on that all the damn time), but what is at the root.

What I know about myself is that I do believe there are reasons for most things in our lives. I don’t mean in a transcendent sense, though perhaps that too, but in that sense that we all have things we choose not to or cannot face, and those experiences, relationships, or memories, do impact how we live. Maybe you are someone for whom this does not apply, however, I’ve yet to meet someone with that much clarity or unity to their life. We’re all imperfect and life gives us some scary shit to bear. Leonard Cohen said it best, ” There is a crack, a crack in everything (there is a crack in everything), / That’s how the light gets in” I feel I am ready to look at those cracks a bit closer and maybe find where they begin.

This last year has held so much change and letting go. I am not living the life I thought I would be; I’ve had to accept that some things will not be. I have pushed boundaries for myself. I have been intolerant and patient. I have been angry and have felt my heart open in unexpected and welcome ways. I have faced moments when my mood has dictated my actions and others where I have exercised control. Most importantly, I have felt all of these things and faced my life with strength that I did not possess two years ago.

This is me today: