Correspondence From Limbo

Are You Better Off? is the final episode of Parks and Recreation’s fifth season. In the episode, Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) holds a review of how her year on the Pawnee City Council has gone. Things get complicated when a coalition of businesses and private individuals band together to have Leslie recalled from the council. The episode ends with Leslie saying that, while she’ll fight the recall efforts, she cares more about the well-being of her constituents than scoring political points or holding onto power for its own sake. She instead sincerely asks people of her town if they feel they are better off than they were a year ago.

“Am I better off?”, is a question I’ve been asking myself a lot recently. Part of that is the time of year – I’m writing this as December is coming to an end. The new year is upon us with all the promise it brings, and that can inspire a lot of reflection on the year that has been.

“Am I better off?”, I ask myself. The answer I think, is no. To put it bluntly, 2023 has been shit and painful and upsetting. 2022 ended on a sad note for me – my cat had got very sick, and he passed away in the final days of the year. While it was a terrible time, there were things that I could look forward to – I was in the beginning of a new relationship, I was moving into a new position at work, and I had passed my driving test, allowing me a new freedom in my life.

But change is the only constant of the universe, and 2023 was nothing but a year of changes, not all of them good. It is December, and over the course of this year I have been broken up with, I’ve failed exams I’ve taken for work, while the cost of purchasing and maintaining my car has drained most of my savings, curtailing the freedom that I found. One of my godparents passed away this year, leaving a painful void in our family, one that is still slowly healing.

Yet despite all these changes, my cat is still dead.

What this year has taught me is that my support system needs work – as it stands it currently doesn’t exist. Most of my friends either live far away from me, spread out over the country and further afield or aren’t in a position to offer much support due to their circumstances. So, I instead sit alone, writing, and watching old episodes of Prepare to Try and playing the same old video games as I try to distract myself from my problems. It’s not a healthy solution.

I want, need to change this. In the new year, I’m planning to try to get out more, meet new people, maybe even move away. But until then I will try as much as I can to heal. I’ve been blaming myself a lot lately for how this year has turned out – I should have studied more, I should have saved more, I should have been a better partner. I think I need to start forgiving myself. A lot of things have changed this year. Why shouldn’t I be one of them?

–

I lied earlier when I said that I started writing this piece on Boxing Day. I actually started putting this together at the end of November, as the wheel of the universe started turning, ever forwards, towards the end of the year.

Yes, the end of the year is coming so fast that it feels like I get whiplash when I think about it. Soon it will be January, then February, and then I’ll be another year older. Scary stuff.

There’s part of me that feels like I’ve been left behind somewhere; like a train is leaving the station while I’m still fumbling for my ticket at the barrier. I’ve written before about how I feel a bit trapped in a loop, and it’s a feeling I still quite haven’t managed to shake.

I hope I escape that loop though. I hope I heal, and that I can look back at the end of 2024 and say that I’m better off than I am now. I hope, that one day, I will be able to return to your side.