Everyone who knows me knows that the end of the year is when I get most mushy. It’s a sentimental time for me, an opportunity to look back and consider my achievements, my losses, and my lessons. I compare the past year with the one before that, and the one before that. Most years are some kind of improvement on the last.

But this is the second year in a row where I’m spending New Year’s Eve in a state of uncertainty. Of course, we never know our futures; there’s always some doubt and anxiety that comes with the New Year. In the past, I’ve had a solid foundation upon which to consider the next few months. I knew what I was aiming for, at least temporarily, whether it was the end of another semester or building a business plan. These last two years though, I’ve been shaky. This time last year, I was homeless and broke and recovering from a toxic relationship. Today, I’m still recovering but at least I know I’m better off. The next steps for me are to decide on some major life changes, in order to take care of my health though likely at the expense of stability, especially in terms of money.

A year ago, I had This Year by The Mountain Goats on repeat. It’s a Mountain Goats song so you know it’s not particularly uplifting but I found it comforting. The band reminds me of one of my closest friends who is also the most physically distant, living on the other side of the world. When he was in London, he would give me new perspective on my problems, and he always understood the mental illness stuff. This Year was the right ratio of upbeat music to downbeat lyrics. At the time, it felt like everything was falling apart but still I found hope and celebration in leaving a worse situation to try to reclaim my self and a life of my own. This Year was my anthem; I was gonna get through that year even with all the damage I had absorbed into myself.

Then New Year’s came and went, and I was still listening to this song and I was still telling myself to survive. The new year has always acted like a natural bookend for me, a way to take what I’ve learned from the year and equip myself for the next. I don’t set myself resolutions or lofty goals. I don’t set up any expectations for the next year (which might be part of why I seem to enjoy New Year’s so much more than anyone else I know.) But whilst New Year’s Eve was cathartic for me last year, the weeks following were a continuation. I was still putting myself back together. I still had a ton of work to do in order to get back on my feet. It was relentless.

Today, I feel similarly. I don’t get a break, not right now. I’ve got too much to do. I’m still healing, still figuring out how to accept that I’m not quite where I want to be right now. I’m facing another year of transience and instability. It’s what makes most sense for me; my whole life has been nomadic. I’ve never had a solid foundation. The roots that at the beginning of the year I thought were finally growing, well they never took. My city, like me, can’t find that kind of bond.

This year has been one of the most pivotal for me. There has been a lot of difficulty but a lot of achievement as well. I’ve made decisions for myself that have taught me what I really need in order to be happy and to feel fulfilled. I’ve spent a lot of this year restless and I know there’s a lot of work and patience and striving ahead. I’m learning to chase what I need, even though that’s not compatible with having solid footing, even though that means not knowing what comes next, even though that means doubt and insecurity and fear. Lots and lots of fear.

But here I am, at the end of 2017, in a choking depressive episode. It’s not even one of the worst I’ve had this year but it’s debilitating and it hurts and it’s more physical than an episode has been in a while. Honestly, I can’t really see past it. At this point, I’m taking each hour at a time, willing myself to at least get to New Year’s Day, because that’s what I’ve promised people. I’m scared. I’m not afraid to fail but I’m terrified of being mediocre. I look back and I can see someone far shinier from before I lived in that house and before I left it. I might never be that person again and I’m afraid of what that means for me.

Once again, I’m here on New Year’s Eve, singing I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me.

This year, and the next.

Tomorrow, I’ll still need this song. Tonight doesn’t feel like a bookend at all, but a marker. A reminder that I made it, even if it doesn’t feel worth it, even if I can’t feel much of anything at all. It’s the block in the road that tells you how many more miles you need to walk, except the number’s been scratched off so you just have to eyeball the horizon.

I know I still have to navigate the next few months of mental illness and self-doubt and the terrifying, liberating, absolutely-the-right-fucking-thing-to-do steps I need to take. And there’ll be times next year, just like there were this year, when I don’t need the song. There’ll be times when I’m flying and excited and everything feels like it’s going to slot together just fine. Times when I’ll feel like I’ve made it, finally.

And those times will pass again because we each live on our own rollercoaster, and maybe next New Year’s I’ll still be singing that chorus. But in 2017, I started to accept who I am and what I really need after a lifetime of being told what I should aim for, a lifetime of coercion and abuse, living in a society that seeks to control and suppress the will and the dreams of queer femmes of colour and those of us with mental illness and all of us who want better.

I’m learning how to carry the trauma and the pain of not having a home, of feeling cut loose, of being lost almost all the time. Maybe the heartache will kill me eventually, but not this year. This year, I made it.

Heavy Machinery is written by Zainabb Hull and powered by sad men making music and the paths in the undergrowth.

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