It’s 2019, Let’s Get Up

2018…you were hard.

At times you were broken glass under my belly as I crawled to make it through to the next morning. Others, you were a complex web that I was wrapped so tightly in I couldn’t escape. I’ve cried. Hard. To the point where I’ve felt that no other tears could possibly fall. I’ve been wrung out like a sponge of all the hope I’d had. I’ve been knocked down more times than I could even count…

…But I got up.

No matter how hard the journey was at times, how broken my spirit may have been, how hopeless it all may have seemed, I got up. No matter how hard you hit, you never knocked me out. As many times as you have tried to stop me, you were never able to do so. Here I am, at the precipice of another year. I’m standing on the edge of the mountain as the gap closes from one year to another and I am ready…to jump, climb, pull myself up and keep going.

I will keep going all the way into and through 2019. And I implore you to do the same. No matter how hard life may feel at times, it’s generally not as hard as we think. It’s not in your head – it’s in your heart. It’s in your spirit. Though your spirit may sometimes sink, like most things, once you’ve gone down as far as you can go, the only place you can go from there is up. When you’ve hit your rock bottom, you can only get up. When you’ve been at your lowest, you can only get up.

In 2019, let’s get up.

I’m not saying this as a bottle of mushy optimism. I’m saying this as someone who has been there…who goes back there often – to that place, that darkness, that pain. I say this as someone who has sank like a stone through life and didn’t think I could rise again – but eventually I became a feather, caught in the wind of what could be, not merely what is. In 2019 I will keep going, just as I have through 2018 – I hope that the swings will not connect as accurately as they have this past year, and that I can avoid the pain altogether. I am optimistic, but not naïve. I know there will still be hard times. I know there will still be endless nights. There will still be pain.

What I know for sure, though, is that I can and will get up. I will rise like the proverbial Phoenix because I won’t allow myself to merely turn to ash over the fires of change. Even if I have to drag myself along on my belly, or crawl through the smoke from the flames, I will keep going. Because eventually as hard as things may seem, I know that I can persevere. I can withstand whatever life throws my way – and I promise if I can do this, anyone can. Not mushy optimism – just a cold fact.

So yes, 2018…you were hard. But I am leaving you behind, scars and all. And 2019…I’m ready for whatever you throw my way.