A new book sits aptly in front of me. I think back to all the books I read in 2019. Inwardly list them out, counting each one off with my fingers. I believe reading is the best way to live, many other lives. As I enjoy reading fictional crimes and thrillers, I’m a detective in all of them and a very good one.
Putting my fictional life to the side, let’s take a glance at my real one. I entered 2019 hopeful, full of dreams and wishes. After a tough 2018, I made a promise to myself early in the year that I would quietly walk away from anything that jeopardized my peace with negativity.
I won’t go into a full 365-day journal; I’m just going to give one very short example of how the first six months of 2019 looked for me. In 2018, I started taking driving lessons, which I, later on, quit in the spring of 2019. Half an hour into every lesson, my instructor would start putting me down. While I personally was beginning to feel confident behind the wheel, he was verbally knocking that confidence back. A conflict I didn’t need. He would make comments like “I knew you were going to do that (repeating it three times), that was an absolute fail”. He once told me I was driving too slow. Had he looked at the meter reader, he would’ve seen I was driving at the road’s limit. When I questioned him, he then looked down at the reader and said “now you’re at the right speed”, though the speed hadn’t changed. Confused. As this went on, I was beginning to dislike having him as my instructor. I didn’t let his flawed criticism stop me from wanting to learn how to drive, but I did discontinue my lessons with him.
Knowing very well that I could freely walk away from negativity, I continued to break free from other stressful situations without any second-thoughts. There were instances, which I won’t get into, where I was pelted with jibes daily. These digs went on until the day I built up the courage to walk away. And, when I did things, started to change. During the second half of the year, new doors opened for me as I began to learn my worth once again. I was surrounded by people who were appreciative, positive and encouraging. My mood lifted up, I no longer felt lethargic the second I got out of bed and my stress-turned white hair was back to its natural, dark brown colour.
Now that I look back at 2019 and my not so white hair, all I can say is I’m glad I kept the promise of parting ways with disharmony.
Blame It On Art 