7 Ways 2015 Changed My Life Forever

This seems to have been a hard year for everyone. Maybe you can learn from my struggles. Here’s what my 2015 looked like.

1. I was rich.

Well, not really me, but my father. 2015 started off pretty great. I got to ring in the New Year with my siblings in Orlando. I was living in my own place with everything I could have asked for and more. I had no complaints, and I was attending Full Sail at the expense of my dad. There’s really not much for me to say here. Thank G-d for all the awesome times we had as a family because of this.

2. I partied like this woman:

What happens in the underground stays in the underground! I will say, though, that the music here in Orlando helped to craft my newfound taste for chillstep, deep house and neo-R&B genres (no small fault of Early Morning Music). There are lots of interesting people and parties in this city. While exploring them, I learned how to socialise and how to beat substance abuse. More importantly, I learned how to celebrate life and success, however small those successes may be.

3. I finally learned how to make lasting friends.

Being an introvert is one thing. Being a shy introvert that was sheltered from childhood is entirely another. As an adult, this turned into a cynical fear of letting people in. People boast constantly about having a small circle. Please. You are 700 years too early to talk to me about a small circle when there is exactly 1 human being that knows every single thing about me, through and through: myself.

That said, I’ve had the chance to let down my guard and share some deep thoughts and all kinds of experiences with many people this year. These people are the ones I consider as friends. These beautiful people have lifted me up when I was down, gave me their beds, their homes, their shoulders, their hearts, their food and their love. We celebrated together and we cried together. A few times, I had to open my home to a few of these people, and I didn’t think twice about it because of their place in my heart. If I had to do it all again, I wouldn’t change a thing.

4. I was homeless.

Learning to depend on people was so difficult for me to do. I’m used to being autonomous, and more so, a servant of others. If I am struggling, how can I help other people?

Being homeless forced me to look outside of myself, and ask for help instead of giving up on hope beyond my own ability. Miracles happen through other people. Being a one-man band isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Now, I can dig for and reveal the good and potential in people even more than I was able to before.

5. I got in my first major car accident.

If I had to pick a symbol to represent my life this year, it would be a U-Haul truck. Everything around me was transitioning; from my finances to my mind. Plus, after I lost my car, I had to drive so many U-Hauls.

Losing my car was difficult, to say the least. It was the only thing I had, at the time, that gave me any true freedom. I used to drive the length of University Boulevard, every so often, just to clear my head. My therapy and transportation disappeared, but my problems and need to move my things from place to place did not. I learned to adapt even more. Losing my car did have one major benefit: I got healthier because I started riding a bike. No, thank G-d I wasn’t physically injured, but I was a blubbering, semi-conscious mess by the time the firefighters pulled up. It broke me, but I was still able to stand up and live on.

6. I glo’d up.

I learned what defines me and how to start showing it. The most difficult part of this, and the part that came latest was consistency. Throughout my life, I have had trouble being consistent with things. My mother will tell you that the child-me would start all manner of projects, and never finish any of them.

I eventually stopped shooting myself in the foot as a defence mechanism. I really stuck to this blogging thing for the last part of 2015. It’s a small victory, but one borne of necessity to make a portfolio for myself and be able to share cool and useful aspects of life with you. I like doing this, and even though I have much bigger goals, I’m sure that writing and blogging will remain with me. That’s worth celebrating.

7. My beliefs changed.

This year was nothing short of one adventure after another. Religion was a big one. Before, I was a devout Christian. More devout than most. For many months, I went through a period of deep despair that dragged me through a mental mire. During this time, I prayed, sure. But every drop of passion or faith that I had disappeared. I don’t know why. I can’t explain why. Yes, I was hurting, but my faith was something that I was accustomed to holding on to. I had never felt so empty or alone; devoid of any emotion whatsoever.

One day, I made a choice to find peace. My perspective was like I was looking through an old, rusted-over window. I wanted to shine that window so that not only could light get in, but my light could shine outwardly. This was not a one-day turnaround. But, Judaism has taught me to get up and persevere, even more so. Every day, I am reminded of who G-d is and how He waits to hear from us, regardless of what we have done. Adding the structure of davening and mitzvot to my life has cleared my mind and helped me to start cleaning my heart. I used my despair to ask questions; and the very nature of Judaism is conversational and argumentative: asking questions to find the truth. Thankfully, I was able to turn my dark times into something bright: just in time for Chanukah.

Bonus Round

There is so much more that happened this year. But, I’ll stop at 8. 8 is the number of transcendence: a state of perfection only achieved beyond our physical realm. Expressing love is one of the most transcendent things a human being can do. This year, I loved and lost. I fell out of love and shielded my heart. Then I fell in love twice more: hard, impossible and painful. I lost my great aunt Beulah (bless her memory) to old age. I made lots of new, true friends; just to move away from them a few weeks later. I lost so much, but I gained so much love for life and respect for humankind that I would have never had, should I have remained complacent and not gone through the hardship that I did. To me, this new perspective is worth every second of pain and every pang of hunger.

Sometimes I turned to Job’s story for inspiration, sometimes I turned to King David’s, other times I felt like King Saul when he fell from grace to become like the cows. But through it all, I survived. I made it here by nothing short of a G-d given miracle. Though my heart is distraught, I breathe, and I am grateful. Thank you, 2015. This is goodbye, but I will keep the lessons you gave me as a shining gift.