The first day of another new year and a new decade as well. I’m honestly having a hard time believing the 2010’s are now actually over. It was a rough decade for me overall on so many levels, and one I hope and pray isn’t repeated in the 2020’s.
2010 began with me in January of that year losing my business, most of my finances, a connection to someone I loved deeply who I thought was meant to be in my life forever, and a few months later, my health. Over the next 15 months, I’d succumb to sex and love addiction behaviors and a number of other addictions as well, and would ultimately try to end my life at the end of that period. Between 2012 and 2014, I worked hard to make it back from that, get healthier, and along the way, met my current partner who I eventually moved to Toledo to be with. Those three years would prove to be the best part of this entire past decade for me. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for the years that have passed since then. As ever since, I’ve struggled to cope and live with my health issues, my partner has had heavy difficulties connecting with me on non-sexual intimate levels, especially in the mental and emotional department, and up until just recently, I’ve felt so very alone in this mid-west city, having made no real deep friendships, no matter how hard I’ve tried. This past year alone I’ve lost three people to tragic deaths, each of whom I felt very close to in my heart. And with the recent sudden loss of the only thing I felt demonstrated true unconditional love in my life, that being my cat Smokey, 2019 has been the most challenging of it all. That being said, I do have gratitude for the two new friends I’ve made in recent months, Mike and Rob, who I plan on writing more about in my next Grateful Heart Monday. I also have gratitude for my partner remaining by my side through thick and thin, and for God having provided me ample food, water, and shelter through it all.
As I leave 2019 behind, I have no resolutions made or planned for 2020 and beyond. Actual statistics have proven that only 25 percent of resolutions made ever achieve even partial success, and only 8% of them ever get fully completed. In light of that, I’m leaving it all up to God now to fully guide me where my life heads from here on out, because frankly, I’m not sure what direction to head in any longer. The last thing I want is to randomly head in any direction that only will end in more pain and dead-ends, something I most certainly have experienced before and don’t have the energy to deal with anymore.
Nevertheless, I pray that 2020 and beyond will be filled with abundant peace and joy for me on a daily basis, as they are two things that have eluded me for the majority of the past five years, more so than not.
So, as I begin this first day of 2020, I’m hopeful things will improve, grateful for what I still have, faithful that God is still with me somehow on this crazy journey of life, and in all truthfulness, fearful for what my future may bring…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
