It's dark outside, but there is a light inside of you

Dear friend,

I hope you are well. It seems like everything is turning back to the start of our nightmare again, and it’s easy (at least for me) to succumb to feelings of exaggerated hopelessness. Especially when we’ve been slowly clawing our way back to each other after so much isolation, uncertainty, death. Suddenly it feels like all of that was for naught, like we may have to start again from the beginning when we’re already so tired.

I do not have a reservoir of faith which allows me to believe that everything will be okay in the end (and if it’s not okay, it’s not the end, etc) because of some unknown, cosmic machination that works in my favor. I hope that it is so, but I would be lying if I told you that I believed it to be true for me. What I believe is that there is something inside of all of us that works tirelessly to bring us into the light. Even when I was in the darkest depths of my depression, there was a force inside me struggling every day to drag me out into the light. In those days, it manifested as a small voice that - at the end of yet another day of isolation, barely getting out of bed, crushed beneath the guilt of not having overcome the darkness - would whisper tomorrow might be better. It allowed me to believe that I could try again, and again. It reminded me not to give up on myself.

Earlier this year, after a long period of inertia and an inability to read more than a single page of anything, I picked up my old copy of Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations, untouched since Sophomore year of college. I read it not because I believe in stoicism but because I needed a set of instructions for how to think and be at a time when almost everything seemed to be collapsing. What I took away from it was not a set of motivational quotes (like every other productivity bro on youtube) but one simple lesson: talking to ourselves is necessary, and how we talk to ourselves is critical. It can be very easy to spend an entire day absorbing the thoughts and feelings of many people, without taking time in quietness to talk and listen to ourselves. How can we process anything when our minds are so crowded and we are constantly reacting to external thoughts? Once I understood this, I began journaling again and it became a sacred time every day when I talk to myself out loud and on paper.

Creating this safe place for myself led to other decisions that have helped me survive thus far. I began reading again, using The StoryGraph to help me choose book after book and delighting in this simple return to my core self after such a long time of not having the focus or even optimism to start a new book. I began taking daily walks, which have evolved from a desperate measure to ensure that I got outside at least once a day, to a practical exercise to help me rebuild some lung capacity, to a delightful activity that I look forward to each day.

These are simple things: journaling, reading, walking. And they are nothing new. But they have taught me something extremely important: I am my own love. It can be easy to forget that our best relationship, our most important relationship, can be with ourselves. Especially when we are forced to be alone due to circumstances outside of our control, we may despair the loneliness and feel the absence of our loved ones, our old selves, our future selves, our best laid plans. Taking time to be my own best friend, tending to myself in these small and significant ways, has helped me to remember that I am safe with myself.

Ashley C. Ford said it best during a recent interview on We Can Do Hard Things:

“Every time I try, every single time I put effort into myself, there is a growing confidence within me that I will take care of me, that I will look out for me, and that I won’t ever give up on me. And just knowing that I won’t give up on me is the most freeing thing I have.”

Lastly, I started this newsletter eight months ago because I needed something to do that was just mine, a weekly exercise in reflection and connection. What I didn’t expect is all the conversations it has brought into my life. The emails, texts and DMs I get to exchange with so many of you on topics great and small have been a delightful addition to my life and I can’t thank you enough for being here.

I hope that the new year is kind to us all.

All my very best,

Lidiya