2023 Year Review: The “Rock Bottom” Year
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Many times I have sat down to review the year and quipped about how short the year was, how it seems barely possible it is already over. But not this year. This has been the longest year. And I think it has been long because it is like I have had three different lives in one year…
I began the year living in Wales, as I had for the previous six. I was alone and cold, bundling up under blankets in front the fire and losing the feeling in my fingers on my damp afternoon walks. I was still self-employed, still trying new things and to push courses and not really getting anywhere with it. My new boyfriend had gone away for work for four months. I was back to getting up at about 11am and working from bed. I was also preparing to move back home with my parents.
This first quarter of the year does not feel like this year. Maybe because it was so like the years that came before, or maybe because it is so unlike the rest of the year that came after it.
The second phase of life in 2023 came in the months after landing back home. I was living with my parents and my boyfriend was back so we were now spending our weekends together. I was getting up earlier, I was starting to have my days filled, I was trying to find a balance with this new life and my work. I had started my Substack, I was working out what I wanted work to be like in this new life. I was also, not making any money.
These middle months were transitional, fairytale months, but they were also the beginning of a storm. I had so much freedom, nothing I had to do on any given day, and so I could go out with my mum for a coffee or pop up to London or spend a week exploring the Cotswolds with my love. All this was what I had wanted to move for, and yet the clouds of financial security were darkening. I had reached the limit of money I could move around, and there was nothing ahead of me. Literally, I had nothing in the works to make money from for the foreseeable months. I had hit a dead end and, as much as I had hated the idea of giving up my freedom, I had no choice but to go for a job.
Which brings us to the third life of the year. From July onwards I was working three days a week as Head of Marketing in a small theatre, and as someone who had been routine-less for six years I was suddenly in a strict one, of the days I worked from home and the days I was in the office and the weekends I was with my boyfriend. Suddenly I had something on every day, places to be, commitments in a shared calendar. Life became full.
There are a few interesting elements to this year.
Hitting Rock Bottom
All the years I was living in Wales, having to move home, and in with my parents, was worst scenario. It was what I dreaded, what kept me pushing forward. My other worst case scenario was having to get a job, to no longer be able to live on income from my business. That was the point at which I’d know I’d failed.
So by these measures, this year I hit rock bottom. And it was great. I’ve deepened my relationship with my parents, I’ve felt safe and also free, I’ve loved my job and my colleagues and it’s made me more confident in my abilities. I spent years with this narrow conception of what I wanted, and it is only by being truly open and willing that I have seen what else can be possible.
A Prologue Year
In many ways 2023 has felt like a prologue for something still to come. It has felt inbetweeny, like the preamble part of a film that puts characters into the right place in order for the crescendo to happen. It has been a year of mechanics before the engine is started.
A lot has happened this year, but it feels like it’s happened in order for something else to happen. I have moved, but not to a forever, or even for-now, home. I got a job, but a part time maternity cover that will end in a few months time. I started to restructure and rebrand the business, but for what I’m not quite sure of. It feels like the work of this year will need to pay off in another. Or at least, I really hope it does. As much as I am more settled emotionally than other years, there is so much unsettled logistically.
Becoming A Person In The World
Before 2023 my life was, I realise now, kind of odd. No wonder I met people on dating apps and they didn’t know what to make of me. It was isolated and extremely internal, just me and my emotions filling up the house. This year I feel like a proper human in the world, living a fuller, connected life. I no longer count the words I say in one day on my fingers. I no longer am free every minute of every day.
Moving from this stationary life into one that was virtually nomadic was unsettling. I struggled to keep up with friendships and to keep track with my sense of self. I think that next year some elements will need to become more settled, and I’ll need to remember to figure out who I am now.
This year, my word of the year was MORE. Perhaps more than any other year, I am ending 2023 feeling that I lived up to that word. There has been more life, more activity, more love, more hours filled. I have committed more to my writing, and to its slow progression, and that commitment saw my shortlisting in a literary prize. I took on freelance work, a job, and I burned down my business to make space for more of the work I wanted. The only place more did not transpire was in my bank balance, which in turn created more fear of just going for it with my business. This is the point at which I end 2023 – a little fearful, with more questions than answers, but with a much stronger foundation.
Come back in January to see my goals, dreams, and word, for 2024.
