What Word Is Your Compass?
How you envision 2021.
I’m on Day 2 of No Contact with a guy I had an affair with. This is take #29854. No one tells you that the umpteenth time you start, it still hurts like a motherfucker. Y’all better get used to daily posts to distract me for 30 days.
Unlike my perspective in the past, I view myself as a constant change in motion. I broke free of a lot of childhood shit that bogged my mind. In turn, other pieces fell into place. When the ball is rolling, it makes change easier.
In the past, difficulties were a hurdle. Could I get over them? Of course, I’m a warrior who smiles while simultaneously losing a limb. But it took a toll on me. Botox kept me from aging on the outside, but on the inside, I felt like I was a hundred years old. I don’t want to be like that anymore.
Now, life challenges are a variety of simple speed bumps or construction cones that need me to get out of the car and move before driving again (probably a shitty analogy, it’s the best I can do).
This No Contact? Yeah…it’s like someone vomited construction cones on the highway before me. It’s not a cement block but fuck, it’s work and right when I think I’m finally making headway, more construction cones pop up.
I genuinely like learning about growth and change. Before 2020, it always felt daunting. “Great. Another thing I need to work on. Add it to the list of flaws I need to fix.” Now, I embrace it and seek it out. I’m in tune with myself and know how to apply guiding advice to my life.
This morning I stumbled across a tip that said: think of a single word that is your guide and compass for the year. There’s even a movement behind it. Words like “freedom”, “honest”, and “simplify” are examples.
Shrug. Couldn’t hurt to come up with one, right? I grabbed my keys to head to an appointment while pondering the right word.
I didn’t want to do “change”, because I felt that was already my drive in 2020. I thought of “velocity” but that didn’t seem right, as if I needed to speed and go fast in making life changes. “Kindness” sounded cool but let’s be real, I’m an asshole. Baby steps.
Driving to the appointment, my panic set in. I drove by the hotel where Jon and I often met up once the pandemic started. Fortunately, I didn’t have to pass by his office, however the main road that it’s on still brings memories of my visits to him. The radio kept playing songs popular around the time we first met, which instantly took me back to the feelings when I had the enjoyment of getting to know him.
Should my 2021 word be “bubble” for fuck’s sake, since that’s what I need to be in if I don’t want to be a crying mess every time I leave the house? Our last discussion was heated and emotion-charged, it messed with my head so much more than I could anticipate. I’m still trying to digest everything said and let the emotional dust settle.
My appointment was a brief respite from these looping thoughts on my breakup with Jon. Maybe “charge”, like I’m conquering battles ahead of me this year? No, that isn’t right; I’m not aggressively making changes. I sometimes move at a leisurely pace while eating cookies.
As I walked out, the nurse hands me bottled water for the road. It’s the same stupidly overpriced water that Jon would hand me after we had sex in his office and we’d lazily lay around talking. Really 2021? Really? Why you gotta play me like that?
Despite the pain on my frugal soul, I tossed the fancy bottle in the outside trash. I don’t need more reminders, there’s already plenty.
Bawling the whole drive home, I know I need to get this out of my system before I park. Feeling relationship angst like Bella in Twilight isn’t an option when I’m surrounded by people all the time in my quarantine life. As I get closer, I mentally bitch-slap myself and focus on getting myself together.
Then it hit me.
“Onward.”
Admittedly, the Pixar logo popped into my head. But it’s the perfect way to describe my compass for 2021. It doesn’t define pace. It doesn’t convey a particular mood or end goal. It’s not about manifesting anything.
Onward means it might be slow at times and lightning-fast at others. It might take different strategies to keep going. It can pause to recoup while facing one direction. I might not even know where I’m going. The challenges ahead are unique and will need different skills to tackle. But the focus is the same: we move onward.
Life always throws rocks of different sizes my way. Some of them, like the one I’m feeling right now while putting my heart back together, have me on my knees struggling to get back up. But when I do, there’s only one way to go: onward.
