Another year

Another year
December 12, 2010
By: Gina Roman

Looking back at 2007, it brought many good moments to my life and as the old year merged with the new one – 2008, it was full of love, promises and hope. Life had brought much more than I had ever desired that often times I thought it was too good to be true; somehow though, shortly after that things took a completely different toll. Unexpected events and my own mistakes made me hit the bottom like never before.
It all started with the economic crisis going down late 2008 (it really hit me just like it did to millions of people worldwide), I had an awful relationship with two family members and was too stubborn to accept my bad behavior, apologize and change for better, as with my personal life, I rushed into a situation that perhaps wasn’t the right time or place and thanks to my immaturity and other factors, things REALLY hit the roof! At around the same time I lost a much loved person in my life that it was too difficult to bear the pain, I was barely recovering when I had a slight car accident right before Christmas, it was a hit and run in which I lost a lot of time, money, energy and effort. Then December 24th came and I was jobless for almost three weeks without generating an income of course. For some reason that season has always been melancholic for me and for many people as well. I don’t know why we get sad because those moments are supposed to be moments of joy, to renew our souls, to repent for our sins and to try not to make the same mistakes again, it is a time that gives us another opportunity to be better people.
The beginning of 2009 was slow, quiet, things were very promising, I was certain that there were many blessings to come soon since almost everything had gone down a few weeks earlier, something good had to happen! With all these things going wrong I was almost 100% sure and hopeful that my personal life would get better, that my partner and I would be able to work things out, settle our differences which in reality I didn’t think it was something impossible to resolve but neither one of us was going through our best moment, we were dealing with different battles and instead of coming closer, those issues ended up opening a huge abyss between us. I held on to that relationship with all my strength but unfortunately for good or bad things never happened.
Things were getting better, or so I thought! April came bringing another unpleasant surprise along. The internet, TV, the radio, newspapers, and every single media was bombarded with the awful news of the swine flu. “What in the world is that!? Where did it originate? How did it happen?What now?” The entire world came to a halt and everyone was in panic, to this day many people still blame it on Mexico but there are still many speculations and unanswered doubts. I was barely recovering financially and once again me and millions of people were out of work because we had to remain at home to avoid the disease from spreading. There was the president saying “Mexico has always been able to pull through many crisis and we will pull through this one.”
I don’t even recall how long that mess went on for, I was out of work and of course I lost a lot of money once again since I work as an independent contractor. All I remember is that I was very eager to go back to work. “Semana santa” lent came, I was out of work for two weeks and I didn’t generate an income either! When I finally got through that mess life started going back to normality and people were retaking their routines. June and summer came. I was barely starting to heal with my family’s, close friends and my psychologist’s help and with all the things I was doing to come out of the tunnel when I had the worst car accident I’d ever imagined.
I don’t want to talk much about those painful moments because it makes me feel anxious again all I can say is that it wasn’t my fault and it was very time, money and energy consuming. This brought many unpleasant seconds, minutes, hours, days, months. I didn’t have the slightest clue that the next 12 weeks (or more) I’d have to spend most of my time at hospitals, therapy, police departments, the junk yard, meeting strangers, talking to them and getting a ride from them to be able to get to my next stop on time. Being carless and being stranded way out in the outskirts of Guadalajara made me do things I would never do if I hadn’t been in desperate need of a car.
In the midst of that turmoil and that inner battle all I did was curse and cry every single night and day in my idle times and not accept the fact that not one single thing was right in my life – I don’t think I’d ever cried so much in life and I couldn’t even talk about all those things without falling apart because it was too painful but with the divine power of God and time we are all able to find inner peace sooner or later if we hold on to the good things we have in life.

I always tell myself that I won’t write so much next time but I mention all these things because things are so much better and different at this time. It took me a long time to understand and accept the fact that sometimes before we reach the top we must “tocar fondo,” hit the bottom, like they say. In the middle of all those painful moments I neglected to see that despite the fact that everything was going wrong, there were many blessings awaiting for me. Just when I had lost faith in God, in life in myself there were many people who were always there for me every single step of the way and more than anything they never lost faith in me.
The reason why I go back to 2007, 2008 and 2009 and 2010 is because those moments were the most painful episodes of life, getting out of bed was such an ordeal and almost every day I wished that I’d vanished because I didn’t want to be me anymore, I didn’t want to feel but today, right now, at this precise minute as I watch my fingers type, the year ends and I ponder about the fact that I am a few days away from another birthday. In less than five days I will be another year older and I am nothing but thankful with life, God and the many people who never gave up on me. I am very grateful that the year is ending and life has given me not one but many opportunities to lock up all the bad memories in a vault and throw it in the ocean to never come back again.
Now more than ever I am convinced that blessings are disguised as tragedies there’s always something hidden behind every single moment of despair but we have to decipher the code and find our way out. It is those moments that make us really come back to reality and become more human, accept life’s down moments, appreciate the good things, hold on to them, bury the bad ones, learn from them and continue our journey.
The end of this year keeps bringing many blessings and I am very joyful to start two new projects that I’ve wanted with all my heart and God knew how much I desired them. It is now that I can see very clearly and understand the way he manifests himself and how he has a plan for every single human being in this earth. For I had NEVER felt him so close, so direct, as clear as I do now. So I want to celebrate this birthday at peace, I will spend the entire day alone, getting to know myself better, reflecting and being grateful for countless blessings that he has given me.