A LOVE LETTER TO 2018

2018, I want to write you a love letter even though you're not done with me yet. 

In summer you felt like that icy freshwater slamming through the rapids of Wairoa River. You shrunk down my pores and I felt so awake. I started to wake up at 7 every day. I liked it. 

You really helped me see that I'm lucky to have him. He and I, we work well together. He knows what I'm thinking. You taught me so much in summer. What I'm like when I'm truly shit scared. How he and I work together. How organised I can be where it counts. You gave me confidence and reassurance in myself. In him. It tasted like our breakfasts in Rotorua: always Vegemite on toast and blueberry muffins. I got so much done by waking up at 7. 

I came back different at the end of February. That's just it: I was different. I kept waking up at 7. Getting shit done. Going to all my classes. Applying for jobs. I got so much more serious about my future because I was scared that I wouldn't have much of one after you. But I was also more grown up. I still went to concerts and oh yes, the Kooks were incredible. And Bruno Mars has an angel voice. But I kept my routine up. I got a new job, thanks to you. I'm a paid writer and I walk down streets filled with piles of red leaves, wearing my big furry coat now. I mostly write for client blogs. Not like this, but more structured and list-like. That's okay. Hey, I always knew blogging would be part of my career in one way or another. You've made me reflect a lot. I remember those two weeks of work experience at an art gallery where I didn't really know what I was doing. But that's where I discovered blogging. And here we are, five years later. 

You've given me many things but you've taken some away. Well, I don't know if they're gone yet but I feel like they've been swept up in the colder wind. You've stuffed rocks down my throat every time I looked at them online. You changed them, too, but I don't know if it's a good thing yet. They like different music now. I don't know what to talk to them about. They don't ask about him. I'd cry so much I'd taste tears in my sleep. So much that I'd get a headache. I miss the old them. They have someone new now. But I still count my blessings that I have him. After one of the worst nights, he drove to mine and took me to get churros. We ate chocolate and he made me laugh so loudly at the table. It was the first time I'd laughed so deeply in a few days. If I didn't have him, I'd be much emptier at the moment. I think the most important thing I'm learning from you is that I need to reach out for hugs more often instead of waiting for them. 

There's a hole in my life where they should be right now. But you're pushing me from behind and kicking my heels. I still wake up at 7 sometimes but I know when I need to sleep in a little. I'm working harder than I ever have: two jobs, uni work, seeing him all the time, and writing a food blog every week. It has started to kick off, the food blog. It started because me and him love to eat more than anything and the word 'business' had been sitting on our tongues for ages. You've given us our first opportunity lately; a food blogger event over the weekend. It was life-changing. I almost felt like I didn't deserve it. But he looked at me in the uber on the way home afterwards and I knew that we did. 

I'm not sure what winter will feel like, or spring, for that matter. I hope they will be blessings. I hope I don't stop waking up and getting shit done. ✦