2024: better things

maybe this year will be better than the last

It is 6am on the first day of 2024. I’m at my sister’s house in Rhode Island and I’m the only one up. Showered, dressed, ready to go even if we aren’t going anywhere. The plan today is to play cards, watch hockey, and eat shrimp. It’s a wonderful way to ring in the new year; with family, relaxing, having fun. I always feel like the year will go as the first day goes so I do my best to make it a good one. But for now it’s just me and my dog-nephew Duke waiting for the sun, waiting for the day and the year to fully begin.

I’m trying to remember the last time I felt hope and happiness at the start of the year. I’d probably have to go back ten years ago. Since then, it’s all been a slog of pessimism, depression, and anxiety. I’ve been mentally exhausted since then and feel like I didn’t have a moment’s peace from 2013 on. No one talks about the toll alcoholism takes on the caregivers of alcoholics. No one asks if you are okay, if you need support. You just go on caring and giving and crying and feeling less and less like your own person. Even sobriety had its challenges. And then when it was my turn to need support and love and care, I was alone, abandoned by someone who professed to love me for fourteen years.

The past few years I have been hard. You know this. You’ve read through my experiences and emotions. You were there with me through sickness and health, the way he should have been. But a funny thing happened at the tail end of 2023: I settled into a world in which I was happy, content, less tired. I gained a sense of self. I found out who I am and what I need to do and where I need to be. I took control.

I retired on August 31st. I had been out sick off and on for months. Breaking my leg two days after I returned from sick leave and having to take time off again sealed it for me. I no longer had it in me to work full time. I was absolutely finished mentally and physically. I reached a point where I no longer wanted any of it - the 9-5 life, the depression, the anger, the lethargy, the self pity, the loneliness and my refusal to let things go. I felt the urge to move on, to walk forward and not turn my head back even once.

The first thing I let go of was work. I retired a year earlier than I had planned on, but my time had come. I knew it intrinsically. My body and brain said, stop doing this. Stop torturing yourself. Stop dragging your sick and broken body into the office. Let it go.

Once I stopped working, everything else changed. I got to spend more time with myself and I discovered that I enjoy being alone, I like my own company. My head cleared up little by little. I discovered a clarity I hadn’t felt since about 2007 and that gave way to me figuring things out. I knew I was carrying a burden that was going to weigh me down forever, and the only way I could purposefully and defiantly walk into the future was to let that burden go.

I no longer care to know why he left. I no longer want that closure. I don’t want to know his reasons, his excuses. There are no words in the English language that could properly convey to me why he chose to break my heart into a million pieces. Why he would throw 14 years away. Why he stopped loving me. Why he stopped needing me. What would knowing do for me? Perhaps it would only make me feel worse, add new burdens to those I was already carrying. Taking very small steps, I started walking toward the future instead of obsessing over the past.

Someone told me that the best way to move on would be to forgive, but I’m not about that life. I do not forgive him and I never will. To do so would relieve his guilt, make him feel righteous. To do so would make me feel like I didn’t matter, that my feelings and heartbreak were okay. They are not okay. That heartbreak was undeserved. I will not forgive. Realizing that I don’t have to do that, that I don’t owe it to him to tell him it’s all ok now, was a little bit of that freedom I was looking for. To forgive him would be a gift he does not deserve. What if I forget instead? So I went about the business of forgetting. I hardly think of him at all anymore and when I do I’m no longer pining. Maybe a bit of anger has replaced the self pity and sadness, and I think that’s healthy.

A wonderful and strange thing happened once I made the decision to stop thinking about all that to stop wanting closure, to not forgive him. Over the past three months, an awakening of sorts has taken place. I have changed the trajectory of my life. I am not going to spend the rest of my years wallowing, hurting, reminiscing. It’s over. It’s done. I have exorcised myself of his demons that took root in my heart.

And this is how I am going into 2024 a changed person. I squeezed that sadness out of my heart and soul. I embraced life in the last three months of 2023 in a way that is perfect for me. I’m not taking on anything big. I’m not clamoring to go sky diving and travel and go out every night. I am 61 years old. I just want to live out my life feeling like I deserve happiness.

I woke up one day in December 2023 and said I am fine. I am good. I am happy and confident and at peace. I am walking into 2024 as a person who likes herself, likes her own company. I am walking into this year with my head high, my heart full of the love of family and friends. I have captured an inner peace that has eluded me my entire adult life. And now here I am, feeling at ease, at home, at peace. I couldn’t want anything more going into the new year. For once, I am not full of dread. I am full of hope. I am happy. I am who I always wanted to be.

Last year I went into the new year singing Death Cab for Cutie’s “The New Year” which is a depressing sort of giving in. This year I’m wishing you - and myself - better things.

Happy New Year everyone. May your 2024 be filled with light and love. Be kind, be empathetic. Give away that love you have, even if that just looks like petting a dog in the park. Appreciate your people. Do fun things. And take good care of yourself.