2016. A year of dramatic lows and highest highs.
The first half of this year seen me have a near break down, I was suicidal, and sought out a psychiatrist. I had two separate incidents at work, one which seen me bottle a man who was bashing his heavily pregnant girlfriend and leave him unconscious, because everyone else just stood around and watch him beat her, and another in which two very drunk guys cornered me alone and threatened to drag me into a cool room and rape me. Little support from my employer, and by support I mean my boss texted me four days later to ask “how that situation ended up the other night”. I made the decision not to return to my job, and it’s amazing what that change alone brought about. I had no idea just how much of myself I had given up for the company over the past decade it was my whole world, I had no idea what it was like to not feel responsible for a business 24/7, to leave work at work. I was on tender hooks always ready to answer the phone and go to work if required, what it was like to have something more important than work. I was angry and took everything personally, if sales weren’t going well it was my fault, if my staff did the wrong thing it wasn’t a slip up, it was because of me. Take responsibility for your store, my employers favourite slogan for managers. It was nothing for me to put my fist through things; also see the reason I now have the cool party trick of being able to pop each of my fingers out separately. It was a process though, like the end of any relationship I mourned it. I was a mess, I left work, stopped basic hygiene practices, stopped leaving the house, and was basically drowning out the world however I could. Eventually I decided enough was enough, I was either dying or living, and there were days it could have gone either way. Some super supportive people helped me find someone to assist me, I made yet another counsellor and psychiatrist cry, and had some restrictions put on my medical records for my own safety, I made the decision to do it without medicinal assistance, I don’t do well with a crutch.
I got back out there, job hunting is no fun, for a while there was nothing on offer, but similar jobs, of which I didn’t want, I needed a complete change, not a partial one. Then it happened within a space of a week I got four job offers, including the one I really wanted. And I’ve loved it, like all things it has it’s down side on occasion, but it’s allowed me to become a better person, and I genuinely enjoy going to work most days.
Then the most amazing part of my year happened, I made a family. The two boys who started off as my housemates, became so much more, they became my reason for being better. They make me calmer, and more patient, and smile when I want to cry. I went from someone who didn’t think they could get pregnant, to someone who against all the odds found themselves expecting, apparently this little bundle of trouble just had to be born and wasn’t giving us a say in the matter. Something tells me this was meant to happen though, to be some sort of sign to pull my head out of my own stubborn arse and realise just what it is I have. I am happy. I’m still completely terrified, and overwhelmed, this is the biggest thing that’s ever happened to me, and the most committed I’ve ever been, I don’t want to screw it up. But I’m excited and overjoyed, and ready for everything 2017 is going to throw at me, I’m going into it with some amazing people and I don’t regret a second of what has been 2016.
Happy New Year Everyone, may 2017 bring you nothing but adventures.
Toni Marie Rawk 