Every night, I look at pictures taken a year ago today, two years ago today, three years ago today, and so on.
Five years ago today, my hands were covered in oozing eczema caused by a combination of anxiety, extreme stress, and an imbalanced diet. I was pouring all of my energy into things that weren’t mine. I was depressed and burned out. I was frustrated. I didn’t know who I was. I kept convincing myself, “This is what I want.” It wasn’t. By the end of that year, my ex-husband and I started living separately. We’d been together for fourteen years.
Four years ago today, I hiked to the summit of the Acatenango volcano in Guatemala and saw the sunrise. It was cold, misty, and unbelievably majestic. The climb was brutal because of the loose volcanic gravel. You take three steps forward and two steps back. My intuition had told me I needed to do something physically challenging to reach a particular realization, and I did. A couple of weeks later, I finally had the courage to tell my ex I wanted a divorce.
Three years ago today, I was healing from a sliced finger and a broken heart. I was supposed to meet and have a conversation with someone significant to me. The night before the alleged convo, I sliced my finger while cooking and spent all night at the ER. The incident must have been an ominous premonition. The conversation didn’t happen, leaving me saddened, unfulfilled, and unsettled.
Two years ago today, I’d been back home in Japan for two months. I caught COVID in late 2022 and needed to heal and recover under the care of my family. I had all these weird autoimmune symptoms and ended up staying for seven long months. I thought I was only staying for a couple of weeks at the most. During those months, I worked out and sweated it out, changed my diet completely, and rebuilt my foundation. I tackled the root causes of my health issues through trial and error without relying on prescriptions and temporary solutions. I also made painful visits to the past and faced my childhood traumas. It was some of the most emotionally difficult, lonely, and uncomfortable times of my life.
A year ago today, I was involved with a man who questioned my worth like no other. With him, I applied the lessons I’d learned from facing my parent wound head-on. In the brief period with him, I finally realized that what I knew to be okay wasn’t okay. This involved unlearning and re-learning of my lifelong beliefs. I was so overwhelmed once I reached the revelation that I couldn’t do anything for a month. I needed to heal. That was heavy but necessary.
Today, I am looking back at the past five years of my life. I am thankful for all the things I got to enjoy, experience, and overcome. I feel light, optimistic, and peaceful. I know that I earned this peace. I faced my demons. I didn’t run away from what scared me. I love the person I’m becoming. I love discovering unexplored parts of myself. I keep shedding and evolving.
