journal 06: 2023

Sunday, December 31st, 2023

What can I say about 2023 other than it cracked me open?

I started the year with a little residual heartbreak, some fear and a few big feelings that didn’t really know where to go. I wrote, quite often, that I had trouble showing these feelings and then five months later, published my first blog entry sharing my personal journal with the internet. A small shift.

That is one of my favourite parts about journaling- it acts as a sort of time capsule. The stories and feelings of my life preserved. You will read an entry below from the spring where I close my eyes to picture this sort of safe space where I might be able to exist fully and by the end of the year, I write that I am living it. On my birthday, I reflected that my biggest accomplishment is, in fact, myself. The healing, the becoming. And there is nothing truer than that.

I wrote about change and how absolutely overwhelming it is. How destructive. I understand why people feel tempted to avoid it, to remain on auto-pilot, to not question things too deeply. But at the same time, I also do not think that is the solution. I lived over half of my life in pain inflicted by people who could not change, would not change. They would rather choose pain 1000 times over because it was what they knew. That was never going to be me and I set out to find what I did not know- beautiful things like acceptance and self-love and growth. And now I want to keep going. And I will. I will this next year and for as long as I have because life is more full when you live as yourself. Discovering new bits, unearthing, sharing, connecting.

I would be lying if I hadn’t stopped to wonder if this was all one big over-share. I also wondered why I wanted to share these entries in the first place. I still don’t really have the answer, but I am proud of myself. I have always felt things deeply- my father still shares stories of me as a child reacting intensely, sensitively to the emotions of others around me. I do also enjoy looking deeper into things- taking them apart, finding the root, the meaning. I did not always love this about myself and some days, I still needlessly worry that it’s too much. But if there is one thing I am leaving behind in 2023, it’s just that. Those limitations we place on ourselves, those small denials of self that slowly eat away at our authenticity. I read my journal and I see a woman who looks at a cup of tea and tears up at the beauty of life and honestly, god bless her. God. Bless. Her. And her flourishing tea addiction. It isn’t difficult for me to access gratitude and wonder and I love that about myself.

And that is the point from which I will enter 2024. Loving myself as I exist fully as myself, including those bits that I worry others won’t like, understand, or accept. Only I need to love them and because I do, I feel excitement to connect with the people and the places that will love them too.

Thank you for visiting this page and for reading along with tenderness and curiosity. This is a journal of big changes, big feelings and big gratitude for this beautiful life and I wish you all a very happy new year.

Hilary Victoria Dean

* * *

January 19th

I struggle with showing bigger feelings. I struggle with voicing displeasure. But I no longer want to swallow discomfort like a pill.

I am sowing seeds for the year, for my life. A quiet garden in January.

February 21st

Writing from our little upstairs kitchen in Orvieto. We watched the sun set behind sprawling green hills, birds soaring and swooping around us before disappearing from sight completely. We felt magic.

I woke up to make tea and sit at the kitchen table. I have a knit layered over my nightgown and my new Florentine scarf layered over that. The hosts even have a vintage tea cup for me to drink from. The thatched chair creaks as I shift, but it is mostly quiet. Aside from the pigeon cooing outside. Or maybe it’s a morning dove. Noah and I have discussed googling the difference, because we are exciting. Thank goodness for traveling with friends.

This little town makes me happy.

April 22nd

I think you have to be okay with disappointing people- the right ones will stick around and will give the space to be flawed, to be whole, to be imperfectly human. I close my eyes to picture it. A safe space through mistakes, conflict, success, joy. A fullness of experience not diminished by shame.

May 15th

Three hours on the phone that one night.

After a long pause, he asked me about my life. “What do you want?”

I laughed and demanded, “Be more specific.”

Laughing too, he answered, “No.”

Self-Portrait, April

May 19th

A baby bird learning how to fly almost crashed into me. Everyone at the tables around me noticed and we all laughed and forgave the little thing instantly. It is learning something important that will last its whole life. Some mistakes are to be expected.

The birds are actually quite aggressive back here. They have learned of the croissants and the butter tarts, which I would choose over bird seed as well.

June 21st

Summer solstice. To speak of such desire openly can feel vulnerable after years of trying to quiet it down.

I have always known I deserved beautiful things- love, safety, calm. But even so, that doesn’t guarantee you know what to look for. That doesn’t ensure you will know it when you see it. Instead, you keep recognizing the thing that is familiar to you, even if the thing is bad. To give up this framework in favour of the truths you will discover yourself. Scary. Who can admit three decades into their life that they may not know themselves as they thought they did? So do it now. There is no right time. There is only time you waste living a life that was defined for you by someone else.

This solstice I give it all to myself and ask for it from this beautiful world around me. I ask for it because I believe it is out there. I believe because that is the life I have chosen for myself.

Self-Portrait, August

September 15th

32. And my biggest accomplishment is myself. My becoming, or rediscovering of me. I am grateful I have been able to feel this shift and travel down this path. Ready to learn, make mistakes, feel the fire, yearn for more and soften into it all.

May this year ahead show me how life opens up when I am unafraid to embrace myself, to dream and to love fiercely.

Happy birthday to me.

September 25th

Home from five days in Bermuda. My sister made things so special- presents wrapped, homemade cards, a cake. The nieces tore through it all in under ten minutes, rushing what I would have wanted to be slow and intentional. The way of kids- the immediacy. The gift of loving adults to gradually teach them patience. The gift they give us, bringing the excitement. Balance. I wore my new birthday dress to blow out my candles. I wished for great love, as I always do. And I feel it, in the tight grip of my nieces’ hands. 20 small fingers, resting on my leg or intertwining in the webbing of mine. They seem to find me, always.

Photograph by Madeleine Dalkie

October 30th

We met when I was on a first date with someone else. His friend to be specific. My date dutifully introduced me around and then stationed himself down the bar, not so dutifully. And so this friend started to talk to me which I appreciated. I didn’t know anyone and I thought that was kind. And he had a big smile. A warm smile. And when I got excited by the song that came on, we danced. And after this first date didn’t make it past date number two, it made me laugh to wonder if I could ever find this nice friend with the warm smile who danced with me when I didn’t know anybody.

That was last October and this July, the friend and I did meet again, at the same bar. But being a few drinks in, we didn’t realize it right away. Still, we found each other again and ended up on a date later that week. I pieced it all together by date number three but didn’t bring it up until date number four, and he had pieced it together even earlier but played dumb until about date number ten. Then it came out that he had known and that he had felt the same about me on that first night, but had written me off in favour of being a good friend.

And in the weeks that followed, I would think of this coincidental or fated meeting as our personalities clashed and old wounds revealed themselves. It wasn’t seamless and I worried about it not being seamless and my mind only quieted down when I was next to him laughing or nestled into my favourite spot between his neck and white t-shirt. This man is magnetic (having drawn me in for the first time twice) and pulls me into his strong arms, one of which is covered in tattoos. And his smile is warmer still and sometimes betrays an inner tenderness. I know that’s not easy for him. And sometimes it’s not easy for me to be so soft with something much harder. Maybe I will read this journal back in a few weeks or months and realize I knew our fate long before I was willing to admit it.

Maybe I have trouble loving what is so different, replacing the need to discover with the propensity to control. Maybe he has been hurt and his fears transform into self-fulfilling prophecies that extinguish the possibility of growth from new life.

Change isn’t this delicate thing. It needs to overwhelm in order to transform. It has to destroy what was in order to make room for what will be. It isn’t easy to feel your needs deeply and ask if they could please be met. It isn’t always easy to walk away if the answer is no. But I have never minded something being difficult, if I feel it is right.

Photograph by Madeleine Dalkie

November 13th

I feel so much hope. I feel things coming. Pride in my work, in my photography, that confidence that I have something special to say. Because I do.

Today I took a self-portrait in a different style, immediately frustrated that I didn’t edit it as well as I thought. Perfectionism. I played, I tried, created something new. Good for me. What else will I create when I don’t fear such critical thoughts?

November 23rd

He often felt like a stranger to me. Not unfamiliar per se- we talked all day every day- but strange. That first time seeing each other after weeks or months during our long distance love always had a little of the uncanny. And he didn’t like that assessment. I don’t blame him. It doesn’t sound too flattering. But I think his goodness was strange to me. His softness. He might have felt more familiar if he was less kind. But his heart was disarming and although I called him a stranger, I should have celebrated his newness. I should have told him it was a compliment. You feel like a stranger because your love is consistent. I would have known exactly what to do if you pulled away.

Self-Portrait, December

December 14th

I love, without any hint of irony, the word searches online that ask you to observe which words you find the quickest. This one represented your four words of 2024. I found:

Family

Alignment

Creation

Breakthrough

December 21st

Winter solstice. Shortest day of the year. The one with the most darkness.

I finished my egg and cheese sandwich that I make for lunch most days now. I loaded the yolk-stained plate in the dishwasher and said to no one in particular that it was something special. I filled the kettle for my afternoon tea and thought about how much these little daily tasks mean to me. If it all ended this instant, I would miss making another cup of tea. Toasting another piece of bread. Washing another dish. How warm it is. How simple.

December 29th

It is not self-indulgent to love yourself. To think you are incredible. Special. Full of magic. We seem to teach children to be proud of themselves and their uniqueness. We sat around the Christmas table, smiling as my youngest niece listed off her positive attributes. When my sister and I did something similar, my father brightly quipped that we were “full of ourselves”. That is his limitation, not mine, the effects of which have not been beautiful in his life. Where along the way does this get lost? Why do we teach children to love themselves, but expect adults to dislike themselves? Or at the very least, dim themselves?

Loving myself has been the root of everything else in my life, a shift that unfortunately only really happened in the last few years. But it’s always sounded so cliché, hasn’t it? Love yourself before you can love someone else. That sentiment has felt a bit limiting to me. We all deserve to love and be loved and if healing and growing is a lifelong pursuit, we couldn’t possibly assign an arbitrary point where someone reaches their capacity to love. That seems to continue this idea of love as something to attain, to strive for, to be greater for. Instead of simply by being our imperfect selves.

But recently it’s taken on a new meaning to me. Because I feel special, I feel when someone deems me to be ordinary, or even, replaceable. Because I value my time, I feel when someone does not respect it. Because I am consistent with myself, I feel that infamous hot/cold sensation when someone is inconsistent with me. And these things feel uncomfortable. It is my new normal to be loved and appreciated and anything less produces a very tangible discomfort. And more so, I have lost interest in participating in that classic song and dance to change someone’s mind. To win someone over. The people pleaser’s performance to prove to another that we are worthy and awesome. Just wait, I’ll show you. You’ll see, eventually. At some point. Hopefully.

This year I have spent time with friends and family who love me. I hang out with them and leave feeling awesome, and also, inspired by them in turn. Mutual admiration and support. To be adored for being myself is now the beautiful standard. It is no longer this faraway, mythical, glittering thing. It is my life now and it is so real I can practically hold it in my hands. It’s a new start with new possibilities. Loving myself opened up my life.

Where will I explore, now that I can always come home to the love and safety in myself? Who will I connect with, now that loving reciprocity is the foundation? Who am I, now that I am not scared of the answer? What do I want, now that I believe I deserve it?