I’ve never put much stock in New Year’s. I figure if I want to make a change, I can do so at any time. My only “resolution” is my annual Goodreads challenge, which I failed to complete last year. It seems silly to think that anything ends or begins with the flip of a calendar.
But as I peer back on 2020, the year unfolds behind me in a perfect panorama with a clear start and finish.
The big upheaval happened with my late summer 2019 move, but the following months were a blur of settling into my new apartment, applying to countless jobs online, working long hours at odd jobs in town to get by, finding local doctors and dealing with long-neglected health issues, caring for my sick, elderly dog, Phillip, and spending weeks at a time traveling out of town to visit family for the holidays.
When I returned to my apartment, just in time for New Year’s, the chaotic pace stilled, and my attention turned inward. As I faced the renewed pressure of my unemployment and months of dark, snowy days ahead, panic crept in.
What if I couldn’t find a job? What if I ran out of money? What if this ridiculous, impulsive adventure ended in failure and humiliation? What if I never found whatever it was I was searching for?
The world outside was hushed under a blanket of white. Life indoors was quiet, too, as I tucked these surging feelings deep under a desperate new routine: walking with Phil, applying to jobs, exercising, reading, cooking dinner, attempting to write.
I didn’t make any formal resolutions, but my behaviors mimicked common ones. There was intent, rhythm, action. Leaning on structure was a safeguard; even then, I think I sensed how fragile the silence was. I felt the rumblings of the catastrophic emotional flood that would rush in and overwhelm everything the minute I started scratching at those soundproof walls.
Eventually, I got a job. I got two weeks of blessed relief, security, and the stirrings of hope. Then, the pandemic hit, and it all fell apart. Since then, I haven’t stopped scratching.
***
The year is divided into neat subsets in my mind — like a row of small, hard candies with their bright rainbow colors and artificial flavors, which are just starting to bleed together in the warm haziness of memory.
BLUE. Applying for jobs. Daily SWEAT exercise regimen. Heavy snow. Kale pasta and homemade nut butter. Strict schedules. Steinbeck.
NAVY. Job interviews. Basically baking challenge. My niece’s first birthday party. 11 days of employment.
YELLOW. Laid off. Early days of pandemic. Law & Order: SVU. Hannibal. Baking a lot of bread. Losing track of days.
BLACK. Medication mix-up. Manic episodes. Little food or sleep. Cutting off from family. Scribbling obsessively in a notebook. Dreaming about Rafael Barba.
GREEN. First Phillip scare. The Goldfinch. Growing scallions on my windowsill. GISH. Rain and double rainbows. Reconnection.
RED. Re-hired part-time. Heavy drinking on my patio. Thunderstorms. Ropa vieja, chicken tinga, and homemade tortillas. Protests. Doomscrolling. Orville Peck.
ROSE. Visiting Steamboat for weeks at a time. Virginia Woolf and Anton Chekhov. Botanical gardens. Long walks pushing Phil in his stroller.
ORANGE. Phil dies. Six weeks in Texas and Steamboat. Backyard haircut. Churning through books. Near-daily hiking. Heat, burn, ache.
GRAY. Wildfires. Cable news. Castiel’s confession. Tumblr. The Supernatural finale. Never leaving bed. Internal screaming.
LAVENDER. Holidays. Long drives between Colorado and Texas. Fernando Pessoa. The Song of Achilles. Spotify playlists.
***
I can list the highlights, but of course some of the most important details still get left out. I spent day after day, month after month, alone. There were more days I wanted to die than days I wanted to live. I lost my two biggest sources of motivation for making it to tomorrow. I found the same pain, longing, and love in my heart every morning — a wound that never heals and cannot be replaced.
My 2020 was a wreck, as it was in both shared and unique ways for us all. But I’m still here.
One year ago, I believed those two losses — Phillip, and the conclusion of Supernatural — would break me. What reason would I have for continuing on without my home or my best friend?
But before I even lost either, my mental health took a turn. Given the pandemic and my precarious employment situation, I was already stressed, lonely, and depressed. Then, a mix-up at my insurance company meant I was denied my SSRIs for six weeks. I was forced to quit cold turkey. There were a few manic weeks I don’t really remember, then a few weeks the suicidal urges sat so heavy on my chest I couldn’t breathe. Each minute passed agonizingly slowly. I started drinking earlier and earlier: 5 p.m., 3 p.m., 12 p.m.
My therapist tells me now, only half-jokingly, that she’s amazed I survived. She doesn’t know how I endured months of that in complete isolation. I feel confused and embarrassed every time she says this. It was a low point, but not my lowest point. 2020 wasn’t even my worst year, personally. Besides, what other option did I have? Even when grief and hurt feel most unbearable, some dark, self-flagellatory part of myself hungrily welcomes the pain as necessary, cleansing, deserved. I will put up a fight, if only so I can endure more.
But although I was surviving, my therapist gently reminded me it wasn’t feasible, or necessary, to endure like that forever. Survival doesn’t have to be miserable.
I started Prozac. I quit drinking, and haven’t touched a drop since. I tried to make more of an effort, which was a hell of a lot easier with the Prozac. I noticed other emotions besides the (receding) despair and death wishes, and I let myself sink into them slowly.
Soon, the losses I had feared both happened, among a host of other tragedies. 2020 never let up, and so far, 2021 isn’t giving us a break, either.
With each new blow that came throughout the second half of the year, I cried, I felt the crashing waves of emotion, but in my center, I grew calmer. I saw the bigger picture. I knew I would survive.
***
There’s a note on my phone from last June, around the time I was recovering from medication withdrawal and drinking heavily. It reads:
I am ashamed of who I’ve become and what my life looks like. I was supposed to ‘do great things.’ I was supposed to be accomplished and successful. I’m not. I fail, and I struggle to find anything I can hold up as a success. I just see ash and burning embers behind me, and gray uncertainty ahead.
It’s why I cut off from everyone. I can’t bear to come up with a response to ‘How are you? What have you been up to?’ Not well. Not much. I’m not being modest.
Instead of vaulting myself toward something better, aiming for success, I combust. I sink. I run. I long to disappear, to be reborn in fire continuously.
This is what freedom looks like: lonely, transient, empty.
Maybe my résumé is a disaster and I have burned far too many bridges out of fear and negligence. But there is one gleaming success, one skill I have welded into the steel stanchion that holds me upright.
I am good at enduring.
And after a year of widespread chaos, destruction, and heartbreak, what is more remarkable than waking up each day and continuing to care for yourself, advocate for others, go to work, and love?
Last January, I lived tenuously, trying not to look beyond the silent, emotionless safe room I had built within myself. I thought opening the door would destroy me. But I ripped down the walls, let destruction rage, and I am still whole. I am a more complete version of myself than I have been in a long time.
Survival left me stronger and softer. I’m learning to embrace the aching and longing in my chest, and I’m getting better at being patient, at finding happiness in just being. The quiet knowledge that I will endure permeates each day with its soft, sure glow.
Maybe, this year or the next, I will do even more.
