Thankful.
Last year, I wrote a very long-winded post that’s probably my favorite thing I’ve ever written; a list of everything I was thankful for. I went back and forth about what I should write this year, because all of that stuff is still accurate. I considered not saying anything at all, but that’s just not like me.
It’s been a humbling year around these parts. I left a job I loved at the end of last year to take a really exciting new contract; I thought it was the start of something new, but it wasn’t. I spent January working my tail off and created something I was really proud of. I spent February entirely unemployed. I had a one-week contract in March. I was unemployed for all of April. I had a brief three-week stint in May. I was unemployed for all of June. I was employed for the end of July and the beginning of August. I got fired for the first time in my life, and then I got fired for the second time in my life. You could say my career has been stressful.
And that trickled down into everything. Harry and I started fighting, which is a thing we historically do not do. Which is not to say that we don’t disagree on things, just that we have always productively worked things out rather than yelling and slamming doors. We went to bed angry a couple of times. I drank too much quite a few times. There are nights I don’t remember and that’s embarrassing.
I tried to fix every single one of my friends’ lives, one by one, down the row. I couldn’t invest myself in my job, so I invested in them. And I created situations that actually made everything worse for me, because all of a sudden I was disappointing people after setting up a system where people relied on me very, very hard for emotional support. A lot of people. I didn’t want to focus on fixing my own life and I thought I could fill that space with fixing theirs.
I avoided using the word depression because that seemed like a word for people with health insurance; like a thing you’d be proactive in fixing. I wanted to spend my days in bed feeling sorry for myself and I did so quite a few days in a row. Days turned into weeks and I lost sight of a lot of things.
Gratitude hasn’t come easily this year. I pride myself on paying attention, on making sure I’m not taking things for granted. But stress and anger are tricky things to deal with. There were a lot of ups and downs in this one. I did everything I could to sit back and just be grateful, to just express my gratitude for how lucky I ultimately am even though the going is really tough, but it just got me nowhere. The highs were good, the lows were simply unbearable.
And so in 2011, I remain grateful for all of the things I was grateful for in 2010. The view from the top of Dolores Park has never gotten old for me, this city’s beer scene is insane and even though we didn’t make the playoffs this time around, I watched an awful lot of good baseball. 2008 and 2009 were years of instability and confusion, but 2010 was a year where everything just started falling into place and felt comfortable. If 2010 was the year where it fell into place, 2011 was the year where it fell apart.
My gratitude is high-level these days. I am so grateful for my boyfriend who somehow made it through with me. It couldn’t have been fun to come home to me, some nights. When we get into the third or fourth week where I don’t have a response to “how was your day?”, it must be impossible. He let me handle things my own way and gave me advice only when I was asking for it. I did my best to ruin this relationship at times; he remained strong and smart and confident even when I was acting completely insufferable. We made it and there is exactly one reason. I was never made to feel unloved, and that is what I will ultimately remember about 2011.
You can try and submit evidence to the contrary, but I have the best friends in the entire world. There are so many people that care about me so very deeply. To Jeff, Michelle, Denman, Patrick, Akima, Drue, Paul, Diane, Kyle, Justin, Lars, Iz, Amy, Jesse, Eli, Tom, David, Andrew, Jaleen, Ben, Harley - the gratitude I feel when I look at that list, realizing that I would refer to everyone there as a close friend, and that I’m only listing people who live in San Francisco for fear that I’ll forget someone near and dear to my heart is completely, utterly overwhelming. You guys were literally all I had sometimes and I am so grateful for every beer you retrieved for me, for every story you listened to, for every one of your couches and beds and dining tables.
I am so grateful for the work I did have this year. I’m grateful for the ups and downs, for the lessons I learned. I feel like I was handed the opportunity to grow as a designer this year, significantly more than last year. If it took a lot of scary situations and a lot of unemployment to make that happen, hell, I guess I’m even a little grateful for those. I took a huge plunge and huge plunges are supposed to be scary. I made a lot of new relationships and things are starting to look up. I didn’t know how to be grateful as my life was unfolding this year; I don’t even really want to romanticize those really difficult moments, but rose-colored glasses aren’t always bad.
I became inspired and motivated this year in a way that was so strong, it nearly scared me. Even in the darker moments, the world excited me every single day. I became overwhelmed at how very possible everything was. I can’t believe I rode a bicycle to Santa Cruz. I can’t believe I rode a bicycle 125 miles for charity. I am so grateful for my health. The world is humbling, in the best way possible.
There’s a line in American Beauty about how there’s so much beauty in the world, it sometimes makes your heart hurt. I felt that, this year, stronger than ever before. I started to feel like I was a part of things. I feel so confident in my choice to live in San Francisco. This city, these people - I am so lucky.
My mother is here for Thanksgiving. Tomorrow, I will wake up next to the love of my life in the greatest city in the world. We’ll make coffee and tell jokes and smile and laugh and make breakfast together. We’ll drive across the Golden Gate Bridge, which will be stunning even in the rain, and we’ll go see our family. We’ll eat too much, we’ll laugh too hard, we’ll jump back in the car and spend the entire ride re-living stories that just happened an hour earlier. And we’ll show up at my favorite bar, we’ll drink incredible beer, we’ll share hugs and stories and leftovers. We’ll fall into bed fat and tipsy and happy and wake up the next morning to accomplish who-knows-what. I am so, so thankful.
