I don't remember 1994. I was 11 years old, probably old enough to remember something. But my memory has never been super reliable, even to this day, with recent facts - my mom says I never ate enough fish when I was a kid, and fish is supposedly good for the memory. I trust this, cause you know... Mothers know stuff. I don't remember many specific time periods of my childhood, or even teen years. It is all a blob that includes many different factors, things, events and emotions, but I find it really hard to place things in specific times.
I definitely don't remember 1984. I was 1 then. Probably I could get something out of it with some kind of regression therapy, but it would be a true marvel if I could remember it on my own. But we are sold out of marvels at the moment.
I had a nice childhood until the late years, early teens, when I became old enough to realise I was living in a horrible town in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by people with sexist, homophobic, racist and all sorts of conservative values. The we moved to the capital, and my life started for real. I started to be happy. Ish. I still had issues with my sexuality and self love.
The year I turned 20 is the first one I can really place actual events on. 2003. What a great year it was! I reinvented myself, lost a bunch of weight, became popular, finished university with a well paying job and started dating people - for real, not just pretending. I also finally understood that I like boys. I haven't fully understood back then whether I still liked girls, and 21 years later, the verdict is still not completely out. But that would a whole different conversation, for a different post.
2004, on the other hand, was a really bad year. Probably the one I remember the most from that time, on par with 2003. I lost the boy I thought then was the love of my life, and embarker on a journey through a toxic gay world with an equally toxic relationship, with someone I did not love, but used to fill a gap. My dream job turned out to be not so dreamy, and I had to find another job, one I truly hated, to help the bills at home.
The high I rode in 2003 came crashing down spectacularly in 2004. I remember that being one of the years when I felt like I was not sure if there was any reason to be alive. Nothing made me happy, and I couldn't find anything to change that.
I also remember that things did not really improve until 2005, but I cannot remember how I got out of it. The most plausible explanation I can think of right now is that I either got used to it, and it stopped bothering me, or I found stuff to make me happy. But I couldn't list these stuff right now.
The rest of my 20's was good and fun, but then it all becomes a big blob again. I find it a bit hard to pin things down in a timeline. I can think of the early and late 20's, and some dates which really impacted me - like moving to Germany and meeting the actual love of my life in 2011, but most memories are diluted somewhere in that decade.
2014 was another horrible year. Which also came crashing down from a great 2013, where I started the year doing something I always truly dreamed of: flying. Since I was a kid, I wanted to be cabin crew. I wanted to fly the world. Besides, after 2 years of living a modest life from unemployment benefits, not speaking German and not having many friends, I finally found it all. I was happy with where I was when I reached 30 years old.
But then, at 31, I realised that I hated the place (and the people) I worked with. I also discovered that the life of a flight attendant was not all glamour, especially working for a low budget airline, where I only saw airports. I found it hard to maintain a social life and I disliked the people with whom we lived. Sounds familiar? I reinvented myself, conquered the things I dreamed - and worked hard to - but after the euphoria, reality set in. And its taste was bitterer than I could handle.
I remember that it got better after that, probably somewhere in 2015. And the rest goes back into the blob - though a better structured one, as this is a more recent one, and with more impacting landmarks. A timeline is clearer in this decade, especially the big ones: moving to the UK, getting married, pandemic. And then we approach 40.
You can probably see where this is going, right? If not, let me enlighten you: 2023 was a great year. First time post pandemic I could really celebrate my birthday, even though the company I worked for make all the efforts to fuck it up. I relised I was done with flying, and I went onto something even better, with great prospects. I found my UK family. Life was good. Until, it wasn't anymore. This time though, it came earlier than before.
But, just to keep the tradition, here we are, in another year ending with the number 4, where I feel like this is one of the worst years of my life. As it goes in one of my favourite songs, from one of my favoutire movies: the history book on the shelf is always repeating itself. Cue Muriel and Rhonda dancing.
What probably happened in 2003 and 2013, and I probably missed it then, is that reality started setting in much earlier than the following year. But I didn't realise it until I was really at the bottom of it. My mind now looks back at it as 3 good, 4 bad, but probably it was much less straightforward than that. Besides, it's easier to look at them isolated, but ultimately, 4 would not be bad if 3 did not happen, and 5 would not make the bad go away without 3, 4 and some input from me. But that, on itself, raises the question: how did I make it go away? That is the answer I am so desperately trying to find at the moment. As if my life depends on it.
Here is my first hypothesis: time. Time made it go away. Isn't there an expression that says something along the lines of "time heals everything"? This could really be the answer. And to be perfectly honest, if this is the solution, it sucks. But there's hope for more. Hear me out.
I don't think time alone was responsible for it. I think something changed in me. Something made me either work with the issue, or find a fix for it. Either inside myself, externally, or both. Time probably helped, but so did I. Now I just have to figure out how.
Whilst I might have tackled this in different ways before, this time I am going full analytical on it. Gathering data, analysing it and finding the solution. Or, in other words, I am trying to figure out what is not working, and what is. So I will keep what does, maybe improve it a bit to make it even better, and cut down what doesn't. No messing around. There's too much at stake to mess this up.
I have a good idea what might be the root here, and how I could get out of it. That may sound easy, but far from it. Changes are never easy, especially when those changes are impacted by and will have consequences impacting external factors. But nothing is impossible. And the best thing about being in the bottom is that there's no place to go, but up.
As a final note, after this is all done and dusted, I hope I can put all this data to good use. So I don't end up here again in 2034. Time will tell.
How Soon Is Now? - The Smiths
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