You're On Your Own, Kid.

Tyler Hamilton and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Year

This past year has been nothing short of relentless. One challenge after another, each compounding the last. I’ve stumbled through one misstep after another, collecting failures like unwanted souvenirs, enduring catastrophe after catastrophe. It’s been a year where, more than once, I’ve considered simply giving up. When every path forward seemed blocked, every step up required to two steps down,  and everything that once gave my life meaning was either taken from me or led me to a dead end, the thought occurred to me: why not give up? What is the point of anything? I should just close my journals, sell my books, and retreat into a life so mundane that it demands nothing of me. In that smallness, I could find peace that doesn’t amount to much at all, escaping the expectations that now feel so unbearably heavy.

I can’t remember when life became so hard for me. It must’ve been sometime after high school, in my wild and reckless days I imagine, or maybe even before that. I never really noticed a shift or that I was falling behind in some way. It just was. Life gradually became a series of uphill battles, but I never stopped to question why or when it started. I simply adapted to the weight, thinking this was just the way life unfolded.

Losing my mom - my best friend, my main support, and the person I could always turn to when things become too much - has been the hardest part, and no doubt the catalyst of it all. She was my anchor, my family, the one who believed in me even when I couldn’t believe in myself. Now, she’s gone, and that support system has gone with her. I’m still grappling with that that means - how to navigate this life without her presence, without the comfort of knowing I could always reach out to her for help. How to navigate this hardship knowing that I am on my own.

The truth is, it all became too much. Everything is just so hard. Living day to day is a challenge. Writing feels like a battle, each sentence forming with increasing difficulty. Rejections land like blows, each one chipping away at my resolve and my confidence. Opportunities slip through my grasp, and I am left wondering if I have anything left to give - if I have any worth at all.

I am just so tired.

Yet, as I sit here now, at my grandfather’s desk—a piece of history that, by some miracle, found its way back to me—I can’t help but feel the weight of privilege that my despair has blinded me to. Here I am, in clothes that signify a life of relative comfort, wearing boots that have walked many miles through many years with me, surrounded by the remnants of a life that I gave blood, sweat, and tears to build. This desk has seen the hands of an artist before me, and now, it holds my own. My days are filled with writing, brainstorming, submitting papers to museums and publishers, holding calls and interviews in London, Brussels, New York—cities that are far from the reaches of my childhood dreams. I hold letters of recommendation from writers, artists, and intellectuals I once admired from afar—people who, to my amazement, now know my name. This is the life I’ve created.

But in the face of this, I falter. My voice weakens, my once-strong back bends under the weight of it all. Fear and failure become my constant companions, luring me into the shadows where I can wallow in self-pity and excuse myself from trying. It’s easier to let imposter syndrome take the reins, to let it drive me into obscurity, than to face the possibility, or inevability of falling short.

This year has broken me, bruised me, and left me questioning everything. It would be dishonest to claim otherwise. All that has emerged from the wreckage of this year is an unflinching reminder of my solitude. I am on my own. No one is coming to save me. The weight of my life, my choices, my future, rests entirely on my shoulders. It’s a daunting realization, but also a clarifying one. In this solitude, I find a kind of liberation.

I am alone, yes, but I am also free.

I am free to make choices that are mine and mine alone. Free to move forward, not with a false promise of certainty or security, but with the knowledge that this life is my journey to define. The world will not hand me meaning or success. I must carve it out for myself, with my own hands, on my own terms. 

This year has been terrible, horrible, no good, and very bad. But it has also stripped away many illusions that once got me through, leaving me with a stark truth: I am responsible for my life. The path ahead is uncertain, but that’s exactly why it’s worth walking. In the end, there is no greater freedom than the responsibility to keep moving forward, to keep writing my story—even when the ending is anything but clear.

And so, I choose to continue. Not because it’s easy, or because I expect it to be rewarding, but because it is necessary. Because this is my life, and I am the only one who can live it. But in choosing to move forward, I’ve also learned that it’s okay to let this be a bad year. I’ve earned the right to acknowledge the weight of it, to stop long enough to allow myself to feel the full breadth of it, and to rest. I need to honor the reality of this year—its struggles, its losses, and its exhaustion—and give myself the grace to not always push through, but to simply be with what is, and let that be enough for now.

You’re on your own, kid.
You always have been.