It’s been a very sad and stressful start to the year for me and I’m guessing that it’s the same for many others too. In so many ways it is the same every new year regardless of what’s been happening. This year my contract on permitted worked was not renewed and my pet of 12 years got ill and has been put down. It feels like my life is starting over and I hadn’t even got very far with it again. There is just nothing to build from this time, but New Year is always a hard time. I find myself listening to people telling me how great their year has been, what they have achieved, what they have done and I find it really hard.
I’ve always been scared of looking back because most of the time I only see what I have not achieved, what I have done wrong and how much I have hurt others. I don’t want to look and find out how I have failed so miserably to achieve anything or be kind or good to anyone. I shy away from seeing my failures since I feel that it will not matter what they are I cannot change them nor change that I make mistakes or fail. It is part of life but still I feel a crushing sense of complete failure and hopelessness.

It’s the same with reviews I just don’t want to look backwards, don’t want to enumerate all that I have failed in.
However this year has been kind of different. I signed up to cooking xmas dinner for my parents as well as changing my plans at the last minute, and despite all the stress I came through it. I might not be very happy but I am still functional and it surprises me.
It surprises me because there is a big part of me that doubts I will ever be any more resilient that I have been in the past, because I feel that I will never learn how but the evidence is really saying that anymore and realistically it hasn’t for a while. 

So why am I different now?

Because I started looking at what I had done. I started to review my achievements and to remind myself of what I had done. It had never occurred to me to do it for myself so sure that I had just done wrong but this last few years I’ve been around people who could do that for me and seeing that they did that for themselves too. It seems so strange to me that I had never done this but for so long I guess there wasn’t anything I wanted to remember and it was really hard not just to keep tally of what I had done wrong or not achieved, how I had hurt people. I just never remembered what good I had done.

It is not the big things but the everyday small kindnesses that count.

All the small things where others are grateful because I took the time. So I didn’t climb Kilimanjaro or raise thousands of pounds for charity or even get a full time job. I just answered small questions, organise filing, made plans and executed them.

It sounds like nothing but taking on the ten hours of work I faced some of my biggest fears and mostly people didn't even congratulate me it was that small a thing but it has been a hell of a year with stress coming out of my ears. Throughout it all I have had people reminding me of what I have done, who I have helped, and its rubbed off on me and now I do it for myself. The interesting part is that hand in hand I realised that I am really bad at forgiving myself for my mistakes. I always thought I remembered the bad because that was all there was but really it isn’t.

I remember the bad because I just don’t forgive myself enough.

The sad fact is that although forgiveness is not about right or wrong, good or bad it’s about moving forward and letting go of the past I have never been any good at it. There are things I cannot change and even if I could it might not help. I will always be annoying to some, not complete things for others. I cannot do everything everyone wants nor be polite or kind to everyone either it’s just not possible. So moving forward is about letting go of that, letting go of what I do not wish to change and accepting that it is not always good for everyone and that’s just how it is for everyone.