Permission
The kids are asleep or preoccupied, and I am grabbing a quiet moment to pause and contemplate the year end.
It's the last day of December in this last year of the decade, and I see many friends and acquaintances posting lists of what they've accomplished in the past 10 years. I feel like I've accomplished little in comparison. If anything, I feel like I was moving backwards.
Yes, I did some great stuff over the last 10 years: I had 4 of my 6 children, we sold a house and bought a house and moved from the city back to small town Ontario, I started and ran a popular coffee-roasting business (and closed it when its popularity outstripped my ability to meet demand), I started working at a wonderful small shop and continue to love working there 10 years later, I met Jim Cuddy a bunch of times, I worked very hard to manage my depression and anxiety without the aid of medication, and so much more.
There was a lot of heavy stuff too: I had multiple pregnancy losses -- 6 in the last 10 years. I had resulting health issues from one of those losses that impacted my mobility and did lasting damage to my fine motor control and the nerves on my fingertips. I powered through the tragic loss of my only sibling. I struggled with the loss of friends and the implications for my own mortality. The increased pace of my Life and the needs of my children meant putting almost all of my creative outlets on hold. I felt a loss of Self and, to a certain extent, a loss of autonomy.
This decade was very much about me knowing my limits and trying very hard to stay within them.
I had little time for myself and felt pressure and responsibility squeezing in from all sides, but pressure is how diamonds are made and this next decade is going to shine like one big, motherfucking diamond.
For this next decade I'm giving myself permission:
Permission to say no. Saying yes to everything is a great way to side-step making your own decisions, and an effective way of avoiding personal responsibility.
Permission to speak out, speak up, and get angry about things that are unfair and wrong. Permission to be an advocate or ally for others. Permission to be loud and to take up space.
Permission to leave behind the memories that hurt me and make me feel badly about myself. I am no longer the person I was then, and the person I am now can't grow as long as I hold on to them.
Permission to invest in myself, and permission to be brave and to learn new things. Permission to do the scary things, the hard things.
Permission to look ahead without the obligation of grief -- my obligations are to the people alive in my life, and not to the ones I loved who are no longer here.
Permission to fail and to pick myself back up again. (I won’t lie — this one will be really hard for me.)
Permission to be kind, accept kindness, and to expect kindness.
Permission to feel what I've got to feel without personal guilt or judgement. Permission to be messy. Permission to be happy.
Permission to age as disgracefully, messily, beautifully as I need. Permission to love moving into this new stage of my life.
Permission for every day to be a new day unbeholden to the one before.
This new decade opens on a new chapter of my life. Our youngest is leaving babyhood behind and entering her toddler years, I'm decidedly middle-aged, and we're starting over in a new town after 18 years in the city. I'm resurrecting my vintage treasures side hustle after a one year hiatus for our move and the birth of our youngest, and I'm exploring other employment options that will allow me to work at home (or near home) so I can continue being the at-home parent for our youngest four children.