I gave up the stadium to have a corner.

I don’t know how God or the laws of the universe or karma works, but what I DO know is … 2023 HAS to be kind to me. It HAS to be. If not kind, maybe it will have manners?

The last two years (2021 and 2022, I am looking at you), looked me straight in the face and said, “How much can you handle, bitch?” And, “Oh, that’s not enough to knock you out?”

Nose bleeding in the ring, wanting so badly to tap out, but not quite yet willing to surrender, the universe said, ‘I’ll hit you with another round.”

And boy, I was hit. And hit. And hit. And hit some more.

I would have preferred to have been beaten bloody and blue. Any physical scar left on my body would pale in comparison to the psychological scars left on my brain and in my soul.

And that’s okay. I recently told someone, “If I had to do it all again, I would.” And I mean it.

Last year, on New Year’s Eve, I went to a dive bar by myself, and I later fell asleep thinking, “I am not actively trying to die, but I certainly don’t want to live.”

Last night, I swear to God, as I was drifting to sleep (which, for a person with insomnia, is a miracle in itself), I thought, “My heart is SO full of joy, it might explode.” And I would have died a happy woman.

Life is a boxing match, and more times than not, I feel like an underdog, the whole crowd rooting for me to lose, spitting in my face. But as I said in a previous blog, my corner is small, but my corner is fierce.

I gave up the stadium to have the corner.

And I’d do it all again. And again. And again.

*This picture has nothing to do with the blog, but it was taken during the boxing match, and it reminds that even when I am ready to throw in the towel, I have more work to do.