welcome to the azalea garden!

It’s been a while. It’s been an eventful year—March, I moved across the US; September, I moved to the the UK, despite the fact I’ve never been to Europe at all prior; and over the past few months, I’ve been settling into my new home with my partner. It’s been kind of difficult getting used to living with a partner who isn’t a godawful piece of shit, though, to be perfectly honest. There are a lot of things you come to anticipate when you spend your life involved with one abusive asshole after the next, especially when you’re not used to describing your experiences with abuse or victimization in the first place.

Everything’s been good, but I can’t stop expecting everything to fall apart and for the blame to be pinned on me, because things always go wrong in relationships and it’s always entirely my fault no matter what. (Partner doesn’t want me having friends because they’re insecure about not being my entire support system? My fault. Partner had a bad day at work? My fault. Partner keeps sexually abusing me? My fault. I never feel safe? My fault. Partner is upset with me for supposedly not cleaning when I have been? I just should’ve tried harder! Never mind that their pet is allowed to shit and piss absolutely everywhere.) Being here has come with a lot of growing pains. It’s difficult to learn how to be gentle and express understanding when no one has done those things for me, and when everyone has preferred to get angry and aggressive toward me instead of communicating what they needed or what would help. But slowly, surely, we’re both figuring out how to navigate what the other needs, which is what’s important. Trauma responses are triggered less and less often interpersonally, and they get milder and easier to manage every time. I’m not worried at all, it’s just a bit challenging in the meantime.

I’m getting married tomorrow, December 28. My partner selected the date specifically because it’s when John Steinbeck married his third and final wife 75 years ago, which is unbelievably sweet. The only think I’m more excited for than this is that we’ll be spending the rest of our lives together. It’ll be the world’s blandest wedding: around 10 attendees, no dress code, and no personalization, taking place in a room in the local register office. We can’t afford to do much, and since my family can’t make it and we both dislike his, there’s no reason to put on a display for the guests. We’re not interested in sharing anything vulnerable or heartfelt in front of people we dislike, especially not when we share those sentiments we already express to each other daily already. There’s nothing wrong with making a wedding a whole thing, since getting married should be special, and often guests are loved ones who sincerely want to celebrate the marriage. That’s just not an approach that suits us presently. We’re not going to be vulnerable in front of family members who are godawful people, and any money that could be spent on extra fanfare for the wedding is better spent on building a life together.

I haven’t explored my new town as much as I would’ve liked, but that’s okay. There’s only so much you can do with no car and limited funds, especially when it’s so cold out anyway. Every so often I’ll go out into town, and there will be new things to explore, places I haven’t seen yet, etc. While I would prefer to have the place more or less explored by now, there’s a kind of magic in knowing I’m unfamiliar with most of it, and with the fact that the places I am familiar with I haven’t visited more than a few times so far. It’s definitely too small for my liking but I’m happy here regardless; the only way I’d unhappy is if I felt I was stuck here forever, or didn’t have any plans for moving somewhere a bit bigger. We’re thinking Darlington. I’ve never been, but from what I’ve seen it’s a nice place to live and I wouldn’t have anything to complain about. I like living on the coast, but… there’s just not enough here, you know?

My marriage visa doesn’t allow me to work, which is a little stressful. I don’t necessarily need to, since it already required my partner to be making a certain amount of money for me to even be elligible, but still. It’s a liveable income but not terribly much for two people, and being poor has left me with a preference to be able to apply for any available jobs if needed. But I can live with this, especially since we’ll be applying for my spouse visa in the coming months. Once I have that, I’ll be free to pick up work. It’d also be nice to have something part-time whether it’s necessary or not, even if it’s only a day or two a week. It’s something to think about a little while in the future, though; no use worrying about it while it’s not possible.

Since arriving, I’ve been dissociating a lot more than usual, and have been more prone to certain severe trauma responses that were previously typically reserved solely for the most unmanageably intense of situations. It’s difficult to voice this as something positive in part due to how hard it is to cope with, but primarily because most people would probably have a nearly impossible time understanding that it is a good thing. To feel safe and comfortable enough that I don’t need to always need to be putting off more “extreme” trauma-based responses/reactions to things is a big deal. There are people who spend their entire lives incapable of allowing things to start unravelling enough to meaningfully analyze and look at them, instead stuck in this perpetual hell of dread, discomfort, and unease that can never truly be shaken because to fix a problem it must be named—and if it never starts to really fuck you up to an extent where you must identify and analyze it, you probably never will. At least not in a way that’s meaningful or tangible. As it turns out, complex childhood trauma is an absolute bitch to deal with as an adult.

I haven’t been quite as productive with writing as I would have liked to be, but that’s okay. I didn’t have my expectations too high, all things considered; two significant moves in the space of six months, on top of settling into and getting used to both places, is a huge undertaking, all things considered. Regardless of how exciting it’s been, it’s a lot for such a short space of time. I’ve managed to write nearly 150k this year, which was the most realistic goal I could set for myself while still being a little ambitious, and if I really try I know I’ll be able to manage it. But it’s also okay if I don’t. I’m getting a lot better at actually being okay with not meeting unnecessary goals, especially considering that I enjoy being ambitious about setting them rather than fully considering what’s most realistic. So I really am okay with falling short of my goal, and I don’t think I’ll be frustrated if it’s just by a few thousand words either.

I did read a lot this year, since that generally doesn’t take a whole lot of effort. A lot of awful shit, though. It’s one thing to read something specifically because I know it’ll be godawful, but it’s another to go into a book expecting it to be worthwhile and find that it’s absolute dogshit. If it’s for fun, I know what I’m signing up for; if it’s not, I don’t find that out until after I’m already at least kind of committed to reading it. I need to get better at DNFing. I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions because I think it’s stupid to act like you need a fresh new year to change things about your life that don’t require immediate attention. Like, you know you can just… change? You don’t need some arbitrary date based on a manmade method of measuring time to, you know, do the shit you want to? That said, I didn’t realize how much of a time waste it is to bother with books I’m not vibing with despite initially thinking they they’d be good or worthwhile. I really need to get better at dropping shitty books I didn’t pick up because they were going to be shitty. And considering that I don’t think I’ll be picking up anything but what I’m currently reading in the last few days of 2025—all things I’m enjoying—I’ll be endeavoring to enter 2026 with the good sense to DNF books that suck unexpectedly, or expectedly suck but not in a way I find entertaining, or that I simply just don’t want to finish for any reason. I’m sure it’ll take some effort because the sunk cost fallacy is bizarrely influential in this regard, despite it not being so in almost any other aspect of my life, but I’m confident that I can figure out when it’s time to call it quits and actually do so. I can’t keep fucking doing this. I can’t keep wasting my time this way, it’s stupid and pointless and I’m sure I would be able to read at least five or six more worthwhile books per year if I stopped.

Life is honestly pretty good, all things considered. Finances will be tight due to my husband’s work situation (I shan’t say more… but god, I really fucking could!), but that’s okay. Being required to take fully unnecessary sick leave (not as in “I could tough it out,” as in “the issue does not exist”) is crazy but it doesn’t automatically mean that things will be bad. Just a little more difficult. I’m not exactly bothered by this; I’ve survived tighter financial situations perfectly fine, so there’s no reason why this should be the end of the world, especially if things go as they’re meant to. I’m looking forward to what the future has to bring and this isn’t going to ruin that for me.