My Year of Awesome!

Happy Birthday to my beloved blog Smashing Through Life!

Fake snakes for everyone!

That’s right, as of February 5th, I have officially been writing this blog for one full year. Wow, time really flies when you resolve to change your life. And change my life this year I did…

When I started this blog a year ago, I had no idea how tremendously my life was going to change. This time last year, my heart was breaking. A little piece of it, every day. I was doing a job that I was talented at, but had no upward motion. The place was a mismanaged zoo. Half of our team pulling way more than their weight because they gave a shit. The other half, careless slackers who preferred sleeping their way to the top, you know, instead of earning it like decent folk. So many secrets. So much political drama. It was like trying to swim through wet concrete. Every single goddamn day.

Working long hours. Loooong hours. And then going home and working more. Thinking, dreaming, breathing, crying, bleeding work. Some nights, I couldn’t even speak properly when I got home. My mind, a snarling and tangled mess.

It was even worse after The Magpie left. Nothing good ever happening. Always coming into work and cleaning up after others. Always having to take the lead, and bear the burden of responsibility for the whole department. Always struggling and stressing in silence. No appreciation. No promotion in sight. Even though the carrot was perpetually being dangled in front of me, my heart always knew it was never really going to drop.

I know how exploitation feels. And I will never let myself feel that way again.

So much pressure. To impress, to succeed, to make a difference. The weight of the world was slowly crushing me to death, one work day at a time. I had no time to think, to breathe, to be me anymore.

Outwardly, unless you know me really goddamn well, my strife was imperceptible. I carried it around with me, but I didn’t advertise it. That’s not my way. I’m not the forthcoming type when it comes to my problems, my pain.

If I didn’t find a way to release some of the tension in my soul, I was going to rupture something. That’s why I started the blog. I needed something, just for me. Something I could enjoy. A way to express my frustrations. A vehicle, an outlet. A way to remedy myself. A soothing salve for my aching heart.

I needed some fucking positivity in my life.

I know this all sounds so dramatic. “Surely this post is rife with hyperbole”, you exclaim to yourself. Throwing your hands up in the air with mock incredulity. But it isn’t. What I described was my reality. It was a dramatic time in my life. I was drenched in unwanted drama. And I just wanted to have fun again.

I started writing. Writing always used to feel so good. I wrote a novel once. The summer between seventh and eighth grade. That was another tumultuous time in my life. Moving to a new town, starting over at a new school in the fall. So I took to writing, to make myself feel better. I wrote on a really old PC that had Windows 95 on it. We didn’t have disks though, and that computer did not live long or prosper. Solitaire, mahjong, and my novel. These were the only things that even warranted turning the computer on. It was terrible though, the novel. So it wasn’t much of a shame when the computer crapped out and it was lost forever. I didn’t cry or anything. I just let it go. Someday, I’ll write another one I promised myself.

And with that same need, that same desire to make myself feel better, I took to writing again. Writing the blog. Weekly diatribes about the best thing that had happened that week. The arbitrary things that brightened my life. My weapons of positivity, which were wielded with gusto, on my quest to reclaim my formerly awesome self. That rad girl I used to be, before I joined the ranks of the workforce, my Holy Grail.

And it worked! Wondrously. The more I wrote, the better I felt. Every week, a little more tension melted away. I felt a little bit lighter everyday. And my heart stopped breaking. Writing mended it. Eventually, I felt empowered enough to leave that shitball job. Who needs the bullshit anyways? Certainly not me!

New job, new apartment, new city, new lease on life. And it all started with my blog.

I get up, and I kick the shit out of life every day. Right in the nuts! My life is my own again, and it is awesome.

To those of you who’ve been with me for this journey so far, thank you. Thank you for reading, for commenting, and for letting me be myself. I write for me, but I love sharing it with you.

Happy 1st Birthday Smashing Through Life

Here’s to another year of awesome!