You never know when you will experience a dark year that you are more than ready to say goodbye to. I’m only 42, so it’s feasible this year will not even be my darkest.

Still, as the New Year approaches, I wonder how I should say goodbye. If I could have my way, this year would never have happened. In an instant, I would go back to my life before this year, but that simply isn’t an option.

I lost so much, I wish I could have a redo, a rewind, a retake. Wasn’t this year just a mistake? But no. Here I sit at the end of it in my new reality, one that would have been impossible to imagine only 12 months ago. Some days it feels impossible even now. But still, here I am.

It Changed Me

This year changed so much about me. “Ahhh,” it was a gift for your personal growth, many will say. I would have been content with the ungrown, unwounded person I was before this year. I don’t think I needed it. Things were okay, good even before this year.

It was not required, but here it was regardless. A series of events unrestrained and without regard.

There are lots of things that make life hard. I know you have a hardest year too. A year you were more than ready to say goodbye to. Maybe our years are the same, maybe they weren’t.

There are all kinds of hard, and one type of devastation does not lessen another. It’s not so much in the details, just in the existence of the difficulty. It was a life-changing year and not in a good way.

What I Would Like to Do to This Dark Year

I would like to hurt the year, the way it hurt me. If I could make it disappear, erase it, I would. I would destroy it, the way it tore apart so much of who I was. But I can’t. I cannot do anything to it.

It just is.

It feels no pain, and certainly no compassion. My hurt is unrecognized and insignificant in the context of its existence. What might feel the most cathartic, to return pain in equal measure to what I have felt, is unrealistic and impossible.

I want to say goodbye in uncharacteristically cruel ways. Shouldn’t it be a fair fight? It wounds and breaks me. Shouldn’t I have the chance to do the same? The answer is quick and unchanging. No.

I Move Forward Regardless

I move forward because I have no other choice. How many of us would choose to go back if we could? I don’t move forward in this new and unwanted life out of choice. Time pushes me forward no matter how hard I dig my feet into the earth. No matter how loudly I scream and turn toward the past, or push back. I am up against a great machine, moving forward without regard of what is left crushed underneath. For it, I barely register.

I Will Take Control

My choices are limited, and control of myself is one of the only I have. I get to choose if I turn around and scream at the past as my time is pushed forward.

Sometimes I do. It doesn’t stop time or reverse the course. But sometimes I need to anyway.

I let the pain engulf me. My voice rages at the unfairness that exists. Why is it not fair? Why are my efforts and desires not rewarded in the way that seems honest? There are no answers.

It just is.

When I’m Ready I Move Forward From This Dark Year

I stop resisting that over which I have no control. I stop looking back and wishing, begging, and pleading to change things.

Those experiences are still there. They do not change, but I do. Not because I wanted to, but because right now, for me, it is what I choose. And because I have to change. There is no choice to stay the person I was.

I move forward understanding a part of me has been destroyed and I will be forever altered because of it. Some parts are rebuilt. Not the same, but still they are there. Other parts are gone. They exist only in memory.

I rebuild where I can and it’s hard, often painful, but I do. Then sometimes I tear what I have built back down because I hate it and I still want to go back.

I open the flesh, just beginning to heal, still pink from the trauma. I tear into it, again, and again, and again. It bleeds and gushes and I don’t care. I’m so hurt, so angry, I have to revisit the pain.

The pain needed to pass through me again. After that has passed, I return to building. I nurse my wounds and again treat them with kindness and work towards healing even as I understand they may be torn open again tomorrow.

Still There Are Regrets

I probably always will. There will always be questions. Could I have changed this outcome I despise? But it is an answer I will never know.

So I rebuild with the regrets at hand. And they become a part of me, even though everything tells me they shouldn’t. Lost wishes, and broken expectations — they too are a part of me. A part of me buried in a fresh grave, but one which I suspect flowers and a soft lawn will one day cover. That doesn’t mean they are no longer there. But, with time they will change, and that change will be good.

I Will Thank My Dark Year

I don’t want to say it, but I do. Thank you for this year directly from the depths of hell. Thank you that it is over. Maybe that’s all I can say at first. But there will be more to come. I will thank these moments for forcing me to discover a purer version of myself. No longer an unadulterated self, ironically the very thing that has brought purity.

I have had pain crushed into my bones forever residing there. Now when I see others, I know. I am better because of it, even though I didn’t want to be, I still don’t want to be. The judgment that used to seep from my skin is careful and hides in dark corners now. Thank you.

Who I Am

If I can move forward in any way, it is with a greater sense of self. I know more about who I am. What I can endure. Where I can change. Even the ugly parts. I will hold onto that knowing, even though I didn’t want to know more, not at the cost that was paid. I didn’t get to choose, and the sale is final.

Choosing simply isn’t how life works. No matter how good it feels to pretend otherwise, we don’t always get a choice.

I have compassion I didn’t know was needed before. Compassion hurts. That’s what no one ever tells you. But now I have it. It too is a part of me. A part that was rebuilt. I can look at what was torn down, replaced with compassion, and say, “Thank you,” even as I grit my teeth against the pain.

At least sometimes I say thank you. Other times I beat against it with hatred. “I never wanted you.” It’s not hard to say even if it’s not the “right” thing to say.

I WILL Be Torn and Broken Again

Even as I say goodbye to my dark year, I am not naive enough to believe it has warded off dark years in my future. They will come. I will be here. I will wish and long and fight for them to stay away. Once again I will be pushed into the future regardless. My actions, my fight to resist will have no bearing.

Once again, I will be destroyed. Rebuilt with both gratitude, hurt and anger. For this is the nature of life.

And when there are good times, the flowers and rainbows and butterflies we write and sing about, I will take them in and live in that moment for a time. That too will go with me into the future.

For now, I will simply say goodbye to my dark year.

Being broken is okay.