Why My Year of Catastrophic Loss Is an Absolutely Beautiful Gift

The day I was fired from my job in tech last May, I stood outside a taqueria in black high heels, and I vomited.

I thought I’d follow in the footsteps of great creatives: I’d leave full-time work one far off day, gracefully. I thought I would start by creating a drawn-out plan to pursue my dreams, take a leap into the mapped-out unknown, and build something concrete. That was my plan. That’s what I was too scared to execute.

This is what happened instead: I threw up on my shoes.

And then I just kept walking.

This isn’t a story about the loss of my job. I had wanted to leave for weeks anyhow. This was just one loss in a series I like to call, “Everything’s broken so let’s sculpt a new reality out of heart-wrenching necessity.” That’s how I’m referring to my 2014, and it’s been the most devastating year of my life. It’s also been the one in which I’ve realized I have never, ever built anything worthwhile until now because I’ve been too scared of breaking.

I learned one concrete thing for sure during this terrible/wonderful year: My gift to the world was in breaking myself and finally sharing all the pieces.

That one concrete thing is why I am writing.

Up until a few weeks ago, I felt I had not been honest with those around me. I had not owned how messy my life became. There were days I did not leave my apartment on Valencia Street, just staring at the light change, wondering why it bothered to change at all.

This year, the following exploded:

• My long-term relationship disintegrated.
• I learned the hard way that substance abuse, physical abuse, and emotional abuse can creep like ivy into the quiet corners of once-loving relationships. (Necessary side note to those in this situation: You cannot save people. You can only nurture, love, and forgive yourself for your own heart-breaking inability to carry their bodies back to the shore.)
• I lost my dog.
• I re-rescued my dog, whom I found shivering in the dark in a box one afternoon in the cold place I once called home.
• I lost my home. Twice.
• I lost my best friend.
• In a final “fuck you” to everything I felt defined me, I fell off a curb in Oakland and broke my right foot.

These were the not-so-teeny tiny explosions that occurred in my 2014, one after another.

Each time someone asked how I was doing while all of this transpired, I’d smile and say, “I’m fine. Things could be worse.”

On the surface, I’m sure I seemed fine. My work blossomed amidst this chaos. But my heart was begging for comfort, and I was going on as if yoga and coffee alone would get me through.

I thought I was saying I was fine because I had too much pride, or because my ego drove me to silence. That is not the case. If you’re silent, and you’re telling yourself that those are the reasons why you’re not sharing your messy experience, you’re wrong.

The truth is this: I lacked courage. You lack courage. You are scared of what might happen if you believe in the significance of your brokenness. You are scared it may be impossible to return to your safe cocoon if you put words to what is falling away around you.

And you can go on as if you’re fine, and you will retreat to your safe space. Or you can let it all go. A funny thing happens when you do that: there’s a lot of space and emptiness around you. This is your opportunity to fill that space with solid dreams, not far-off wonderings about “what if.” What if is staring at you.

This is what I did. I started owning what a mess my life was.

This is what it felt like: I was standing alone on a stage, unsure of what to do with my hands. My body surged with middle-school awkwardness. Then, as if in a teen movie, people started to slow clap. Others joined and hugged me. Some took me on piggy-back rides around the city because I couldn’t walk without crutches. Some people looked at me like I was tainted. They can keep giving me the stink eye as I design my life to serve those who raise me up.

Once my foot healed in October, I got into my car with my dog and drove 700 miles with no real destination. My family and some of my friends told me I was crazy, or that I was running away. I ended up in Seattle and Vancouver and Portland, my time belonging to no one but me.

I bought notebooks and filled them with ideas and memories and worked out all the things I’d lost and why. I reconciled them in my heart, and I accepted them for what they were: totally, completely, wonderfully gone.

I am grateful for the loss, for the opportunity to be clean.

Things were not always peachy. Some days, I felt the pinging of oncoming panic attacks, sharp intakes of breath followed by my racing heart. But I never gave in to the panic, not once. I knew it was uncertainty, beautiful uncertainty. I placed it beside me alongside my self-doubt. I placed it in the back seat of my car as I drove to new cities. And I structured my days so that I could bring my whole self into everything I did instead of fragmenting myself, separating work from play.

I found an apartment in Seattle. I met new friends. I wrote like never before. I found ways to make money that involve working with tremendous people.

Along the highway, I realized I had been living life hoping that someone would discover how passionate I am, bring me out of my shell, allow me to tell my story and start building something for them. People have given me this opportunity before, and I blossom beneath it. But why am I waiting for permission?

I have lived my life in corners, quietly. Most of us do. We don’t know what we want. We know a little bit about what we don’t want, but even that never crystallizes until the worst greets us at our doors.

I find this realization to be devastating, but not enough to paralyze me. Instead, it makes me want to live out loud and narrate my life publicly. The past has no power over you if you learn from it.

I want to live deep and wide, all the extremes converging before me. I still don’t know exactly what I will build career-wise in 2015 (I will learn a lot and try new things and build a business while having a damn good time, that’s for sure), but I do know the quality of people who I am going to build with, work with, and love.

Beginning my real creative journey was not beautiful. It began with vomit on my shoes and losing a job that I didn’t have the courage to leave on my own. Your beauty will come from nowhere you expect, and it will break you before it builds you back up again.

I invite you to let mess into your life. Encourage it. Usher it in with open arms as you speed down the highway. Tell all your friends what a wreck your heart is. That is the only way to create what has been waiting there all along.

I am beginning with intention, in a new city, with travel every few months and my dog by my side. And, best of all, I know that if everything were to fall apart again tomorrow, I’d build something brand new right out of the broken pieces.

Blessings and kindness to you in 2015. You deserve it.

Thank you to Christian Carvajal for reading an early version of this. You’re an amazing editor.

If this post moved you or hit home, please hit the heart (recommend) button below. Your support means the world to me and has really helped heal me in so many ways.