Took these selfies just over a month ago and can I say I'm thankful to be still looking the way that I am looking in these pictures here?
2023 has not been the kindest of years.
No, not only has it not been kind, it has been traumatic, torturing, and very, very painful.
Never in my life have I ever had to endure something so painful, so shocking and so traumatic.
Never in my life have I ever felt so betrayed and so hurt and so unhappy.
People say you get used to things, you adapt, you adjust.
But this situation- where I wake before dawn, where I'm unable to sleep in, where I lose two hours a day, and where I spend so much of my own precious time dealing with the demands of devils who bind their so-called loved ones into endless servitude- it is not something I can, and am willing to adapt and adjust to.
You don't adjust, adapt and accept things that hurt you.
You don't brush them under the carpet and let them be once you realize just what it is that is hurting you and chaining you.
The worst thing in life that can happen is when hope dies.
And this year hope died.
No more did I feel that things would improve, things would change, things would move.
No more did I feel that a relationship- however far it might already have been- was worth repairing, or continuing.
The year past has been incredibly, incredibly painful.
And I am tired.
It has come to a stage where I'm ready to just sleep and sleep and sleep.
Except that I'm not alone, I have friends, I have loved ones, and I have others who help make my life less of a hassle.
Still, by all means I should have grown haggard and yellow and exhausted and tired.
By all means I should have lost my beauty and my youth and my optimism towards life.
Well, in a way, I'm not as optimistic as I used to be.
And neither do I smile the way I used to.
But if I felt old and drained and angry and tired, these selfies- taken on a special occasion- made me feel otherwise.
Perhaps there are moments where I look different from how I feel.
Perhaps there are moments where I look one way and feel another way.
I don't know.
But it is a miracle, no less.
And right now, day on day, hour on hour, I'm praying for a miracle.
I desperately need one.