December 4, 2014:

I’ve gone a bit silent over these airwaves in the past few months. Most great thinkers say we need quiet to get to know ourselves, to get better acquainted, get some hard work done, and intimately forgive when we abandon all these things and hurdle ourselves into bed.

This past January, nearly one year ago, I was on the phone with one of my best friends. I never told many people, but I was crying, and embarrassingly hard given that I was supposed to be one party in a two-way conversation. I cry about my own life maybe twice a year, and usually only when I’m by myself. But I was devastatingly lonely, as in achingly so. It was an entirely new feeling, I told her; I had made a grandiose error in judgment. This living in seclusion and sitting in front of my Mac for hours on end to produce equivocal writing was not for me.

Turns out, it was. My friend said I could always move home and reevaluate, or couch surf to inspire my creative process and stay in good company. Instead, I researched morning yoga classes and evening mountain hikes, found a place to volunteer, and committed to getting dressed and working at Starbucks at least three times a week.

If you haven’t stopped reading out of jealousy or plain disgust, know that I did each of those things maybe once. It was a really good idea of who I wanted to be, if we are indeed defined by what we do, and one hopeful enough to get me moving the next day toward finishing the one goal I actually set for myself. And I did it; I wrote a manuscript now in dire need of editing—and I did it not with yoga, but with much self seclusion, banana bread, and Breaking Bad/Sons of Anarchy all watched on a borrowed Netflix account. But I still did it.

I suck, but I’m also kind of awesome. We all are.

And now, come this January, I’m moving to Boston. That idea of me and things I should do can come along too, but I’m inadequately flexible and prefer pajamas to jeans. This year brought me what I couldn’t have planned—lots of stellar TV, long-distance love, and a hermit-like emotional self sufficiency that knows few bounds. I hope it did the same, but different, for you.

By Abigail Ronck, from Diamonds in the Dustheap

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