2019 – A Year in Review

It was a year when my hair went white. My eyes drooped and lines around the mouth became permanent. It was there, on my face, the tiredness, the stress, the anxiety. In June, I stopped breathing. My body forgot how to breathe. Sometimes when I meditated, I had to bend down to the pillow and pant, forcing myself to inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. The anxiety got me even when, and especially when I slept, in the middle of the night I woke up suffocated, my heart racing and my breaths shortened. For more than 30 years of my life had I never experienced prolonged stress that led to anxiety and depression. And now they got me all at once in the most alone and loneliest time. I fought and compromised and compensated and pleaded and rebelled. I worked out every single trauma, every hurt and wound from the past. I tracked down my vulnerability to every shame and guilt placed upon me. I analysed my shadow, my passive-aggressiveness, my weak boundaries and low self-esteem that kept me a people-pleaser for years. It ached like hell.

In the middle of my thought jungles, I was lost and helpless. No one could get me out of this mess. While I knew objectively that I had potentials, and talent, and determination and diligence, but I couldn’t bring it up to confidently feel that I was capable of doing things that I love, and actually doing them. For decades, the wish for keeping peace and harmony and being helpful and understanding got me stuck in the mindset of a pushover.

When at last I crawled from the bottom of the well, I finally realized that it was all about acceptance, and about letting go. Things I cannot control, people I cannot love, the defaults inside I cannot change. I no longer had the energy and willingness to run after people, explaining, explaining, explaining. Words have become meaningless and sounded like excuses. I closed the door, one more time, mourning for the love and the passion that made my heart burst. But after that, there was only an absolute peace.

No, I’m not going to fall. Not yet. I picked up all the pieces lying around and started to patch them up. Some days were ok, some days were gloomy, some days it rained and raged storms. But life is suffering, what else can I expect rather than having the courage to look at it square in the face? This heart-breakingly beautiful and tenaciously vulnerable life. There are so many things I have to do before leaving for good. The more I detached myself from my own miseries, the clearer it became that I can tackle this.

My camellia flowered today. My first camellia. The white, gorgeous Brushfield Yellow blossoms, full and glamorous, like a peony. This, by chance, goes well with the theme ‘Bloom’ for this year. It signifies a bright, beautiful year ahead. Here to the broken but resilient heart. Here to the tranquility of mind. Here I draw my emotional boundaries, and colour it in rainbow.

2019 BIG WINS

• Habit forming: daily mediation and art practice
• Finished ‘The Art Book’
• Leveling up in Elevate: from Advanced to Expert and now to Elite
• Extensive inner work in PTSD, anxiety, shadow and complexes, self-understanding and self-acceptance
• Finished “Flower Child” project
• Finished “La parfaite palette” project
• Finished 2 travel illustrated journal for Bordeaux and Strasbourg
• Visited Bordeaux and Strasbourg
• Finished 2 Ikebana classes of Ohara and Sogetsu schools, finally admitted to myself that Sogetsu is the way to go
• Finished the second Go class
• Won the appeals against the refusal of working permit by la DIRECCTE
• Finally let go of what doesn’t belong to me

2019 BEST OF

1. Books:

• To Kill a Mocking Bird
• Lord of the Fly
• The Analog Sea Review No.1

2. Movies:

• Dans un jardin qu’on dirait éternel
• Parasites
• La favorite

3. Series:

• Sherlock
• The Sky Castle

4. Music:

• Je vole – Louane
• Girl Crush – Harry Style
• Balance ton quoi – Angèle

5. Misc:

• Ngoc Anh’s wedding
• Duckie’s visit
• Summer holidays
• INFJ

2020 – A New year ahead

Theme: Bloom

Resolutions:

1. Practice art and share
2. Practice healthy boundaries
3. Integrate my shadow into superego
4. Develop self compassion, self love, self acceptance and self esteem

Bucket lists:

1. Take an Aikido course
2. Vacation in Avignon
3. Parisian museums
4. Rainy day fund
5. Emergency fund
6. No more 50euro/month on books
7. Learn Japanese