(Ed. Note: Look, this is the first post on a new blog. I hate first posts because they ask for context in a situation where there is no context. To the future reader, either I’ve kept up this with even fleeting regularity or I’ve abandoned it to the shitheap of best intentions for something like having too little time. If you’re here for dirt, you’ll be disappointed. I’m aware that people I don’t trust with my secrets are likely to look in. Eh, let’s just get on with things…)

2015 was a year of big changes. Nothing I lost killed me, though I probably feared that it would several times in due course. During the run-up to moving house to Ohio, I had more anxiety than I think I’ve had since grad school. I lost a lot of sleep. Fortunately, I had the good care of several amazing women. You all know who you are and you are so very much appreciated. I would not have come through 2015 without the blessings of your love and support. Credit given where credit is due, my current semblance of peace is the product of your efforts and I thank you. If it wouldn’t embarrass you so much, I would name you.

My life is smaller now, but completely mine. For a few years on my way to the present, I have feared losses of several kinds. Loss of employment. Loss of a sense of home or belonging. Loss of a sense of purpose. Loss of identity. But I still have almost all of these things after the shakeout, even if some are very substantially changed or lightly represented.

All I wanted in the end was the chance to make my life into something that I could own, because if I truly owned it, then it was mine to earn or lose. I am doing my best to continue to be worthy of my freedom. It’s hard and I am not always nailing it. But at least I’m in the game every single day and I don’t feel like there is anyone holding down or back anymore. It’s completely on me, which is a truth that scares and exhilarates me, often in the same breath.

Were I given to see it this way, it’s amazing what I could think of as lost in 2015. Institutions were upended radically this year. I’ve wasted no time mourning these changes, though. I’ve wanted change for so long, and now that the hose has been unkinked, the flow is constant and overwhelming.

I’ve not been sad at what I’ve lost because I’ve been very aware that what falls away is replaced by the new. Holes in my life close and new characters and circumstances are slowly emerging to claim the space. My life is not at all stagnant, thankfully. Stagnancy is what was killing me these past several years, I am certain.

For me, replacing loss is now a discipline and automatic. I’ve found that often the best therapy for such loss is just getting up and carrying on. It’s not to say that what has fallen away is forgotten. Far from it. I have just chosen to not let what my life isn’t define it in any way. Not when it is so much more accurate and healthy to define what it still is.

It’s easy to think this because as much as I might have lost in 2015, I lost a lot more in 2014. Losses were fewer but far more substantial. Relationships that had come to shape me in my modern era were transformed or lost altogether through death or disconnection. People whose respect I counted on, revealed themselves as unworthy of mine. False faces failed and gross truths were revealed.

All told, as hard as 2015 was, it was miles better than 2014. I believe life can improve now. I say it can, rather than it will because I know better than to believe out of blind optimism that it simply has to. It doesn’t. But it can. And I am going to be showing up every day to see to it that it does. If you’re still one who regards me as a going concern, I want you to know that I appreciate you for that. Thank you for staying with me. I hope I make you proud.