a new beginning

Before and after 2016.

Somehow the year is saved like this, one that would take one of the most special places on the shelf where I keep track of different periods.
(if I had such a shelf)

I like to look back afterwards at the first and last day of a year, and 2016 is the one where these two points may be the most contrasting.

Crossing the threshold of a new beginning.

That’s roughly how it could be expressed in one sentence.

.

In January there was always a kind of New Year’s melancholy, which back then became even more intense. It felt as if nothing would ever change again.

The anxiety simply continued where 2015 had ended.
Just the usual circus, sometimes switching into survival mode.

Only the evenings offered some shelter, when I felt I could hide from the sharpened daytime stimuli under the cover of darkness.

As if I had turned into a vampire,
something that was somewhat confirmed by my paleness and my increasingly strong antisocial tendencies.

As a matter of fact, I really had become an energy vampire.

If I wasn’t alone, I poured the frustration of my ongoing struggles onto a friend, and to my greatest surprise I found understanding ears.

That was the only release I knew at the time, and it gradually became such a strong urge that I didn’t even notice how much of an attention-thief I had become.

Despite all this, there was someone who eventually almost became my mentor, and who agreed to come with me on what I called therapeutic walks.

That did me a lot of good back then.

We laughed a lot at situations that sometimes drifted into black comedy.

The whole thing was a ridiculous circus, something you could only really laugh at. Sometimes something shifted inside me, and I simply let myself live through the state instead of taking myself too seriously.

Of course, that didn’t make the physical sensations disappear, but it felt good to flip off the voice that kept threatening in my ear.

“You do whatever you want, I don’t give a fuck…”

I told myself with a trembling voice.

January quickly passed with these “therapeutic walks,” but I still felt like I was just treading water, falling further away from the solution.

The mild February weather already signaled that there wasn’t much time until spring burst in.

In the past, that always had a liberating effect on me, but that year my stomach only tightened when I thought about it.

I knew that from the temporary winter retreat, city life would liven up again — with even more stimuli, longer and brighter days, and crowds of tourists.

I had to step it up, but unfortunately this state just wouldn’t ease.
It’s true that in the evenings I could calm myself down somewhat,
but the next day it all started over again.

As if I had fallen straight into the movie Groundhog Day.

At that time I was expanding my portfolio for an upcoming entrance exam to a graphic design program, but the inspiration just wouldn’t come.

I needed a change of scenery to be able to create with a clear head, so I decided to travel down to Monor for a few days to stay with my grandmother.

Something told me it would do me good to break out of this circus for a while.
Maybe I could even make a small truce with my anxiety in the suburban silence — I thought.

And so it was.

It was an interesting contrast to suddenly move from the suffocating atmosphere of the inner city to a small, empty town filled with quiet streets.

I felt a temporary peace as I walked those streets, while at times a nostalgic feeling stirred in me, recalling how much we used to secretly smoke in the winding parks.

That evening I got in touch with an old friend, who invited me to a house party the next night.

My stomach immediately twisted into knots as fragments of memories from the last gathering flashed up, yet curiosity also raised its head.

I had lived here for 15 years.

I had experienced a lot with my friends here, friends from whom I had drifted away one by one after we moved.
I knew quite a few of them would be there.

I hesitated a little before answering, but in the end I said yes.

What else could I say?

I had prepared myself well enough.

By the time I got there, I was already half drunk, though for safety’s sake I stopped with two more beers in a dark corner outside the house.

Like an alcoholic vampire.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to endure such an impulse sober.

There I stood, waiting for the cramp squeezing my stomach to ease, so that I would finally be willing to ring the bell.

In the end, maybe after the fourth beer, I felt I was ready.

I don’t remember much from that night—only that it felt good.

For a little while I left everything behind.

It was nice to see old faces again, to talk and reminisce.

I hadn’t laughed that much in a long time.
On the way home I felt almost invincible, as if anxiety would never trouble me again.

Of course, the very next day quickly disproved that, catapulting me straight back into reality from my dreams. As if I had woken up with a slap, beginning the hours-long inner turmoil.

By then I could hardly bear the symptoms of a hangover,
and it wasn’t just about the headache.

I had very strong inner conflicts with alcohol, which always showed themselves most clearly in the aftermath.

In those times it didn’t matter where I was. The anxiety sometimes escalated into a fear of death, and with it always came a promise I made to myself:

Never again will I drink.

The truth, however, was that I was incapable of stopping.

Partly because I lacked the willpower, and partly because I had my share of certain transgenerational patterns.

Many of the men in my family were broken by alcoholism,
something I had witnessed as a child.

I probably felt the weight of that during my hangovers.

Back then questions like these began to form in me, about this and about other things:

Why is it that I feel what I feel?
And why doesn’t anyone else seem to feel the same?
Or who am I really beneath my mask?

Somehow I managed to get through that day while brooding over these questions, and once things calmed down, I decided to stay another week.

I needed fresh air, which I found in the forest at the edge of town, while I kept thinking about all the “whys.”

Maybe that’s when I realized how much solitude gave me, reminding me of the important questions I had been avoiding for so long.

During my teenage years I had no time for such thoughts, being constantly supplied with stimuli.
I was far more preoccupied with everything that didn’t require me to look inward.

It was a big step forward just to formulate these questions at all.

The answers, of course, only began to come years later.