pressure to make life a constant hero's journey

I got a DM from a longtime friend last month saying, "I've read your 2022 recap, it has been rough again! 😭"

I felt guilty. Like my life needs to be a constant version of the Hero's Journey. Everyone seems to do this, like a friend of mine had such a shit year, but her recap was like, 'yeah it sucked BUT it's better now!'

And my recap was the same! It's like we always have to be moving up and to the right, otherwise we're not valuable to society.

But that's not real life. It's messy and real. I've tackled some hard things, I've made some big mistakes, I repeated some harmful patterns.

And I'm okay with that.

Maybe 2023 will be the year I make a comeback and the crowd goes wild and says, "THAT'S why we bet on Madi. We knew she'd be an asset!" But it's also okay if this year is a reflection of my mere mortality. If you're a longtime reader, you know I'm healing an addiction to adrenaline and chaos. I am learning that as soon as I find peace and stability in one area, some new area gets chaotic. It's a slow process.

Like you, I just want a good life. Maybe a good life is good just as it is. With the downs, and the hard times, and the mistakes, and the hard-to-break patterns, the mundanity and the mortality. Give me all of it. Let it stay that way for a while.

Because I'm doing better now than I was when everything appeared to be on the up and up.