2021 Resolution

Resolution. What does that word mean? By basic definition, resolution means, a firm decision to do or not do something. Often reserved for a new year, resolutions have become cliche. It’s almost always, “I’m going to lose weight”, or “I’m going to stop drinking”. More often then not, people fail to live up to their New Years resolutions. The cycle repeats itself year after year. I myself have been a victim of that cycle more times than I can count. But this time is different.

I didn’t save my resolution for a new year. I didn’t save it for a new day. Hell, I didn’t even plan on making one. I woke up on December 7th, 2020, in an upbeat mood, ready to take on the day. I had my coffee in hand and sat in bed scrolling through my feed on Facebook. I didn’t feel any different than I did any other day. But my phone dinged, and I pulled down the message only to find that this day wasn’t the same as any other day, and that I wouldn’t feel the same ever again.

“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you guys this, but your uncle Travis committed suicide this morning.”

I gasped for air like the wind had been knocked out of me. In the split second for my brain to catch up to what I read, I burst into tears. “This can’t be happening. This can’t be real”. I said that to myself a hundred, a thousand times over. With every cry, it took more out of me. Every time I sucked in for more air it felt like I was drowning. My husband came in the room and asked what happened, fear in his voice for what I might say.

“My uncle Travis committed suicide this morning”.

I said it with my own words, out of my own mouth, and that somehow made it more real. You always feel sympathy when you hear of it happening to others, but you never really understand the feeling until it happens to you. An immense pain, not only for your loss, but for the pain the person you loved must have felt to have that be their only way out of it.

I cried for days on end. Just looking at a picture of him would make me burst into tears. Just thinking of him would send me into a spiral of thoughts and wants and wishes. Thoughts of the memories I had with him. Wants of this to be a dream. A wishes that he could come back. But all those things did nothing to change what had happened.

My uncle Travis was a beacon of light, laughter and love. He could make anyone laugh, and his sense of humor was well known in our family. He was accomplished and a devoted man of God. He was a wonderful husband and father, and was everything I wanted in a man for myself. The ideal man. It tore me up inside to think of the sadness he must have felt. The sadness that I knew I felt.

My uncle struggled with depression for a very long time, feeling like he wasn’t good enough for the love and acceptance he so willingly gave to others. And I had been the same.

A difficult and troubled childhood and a rocky start into adulthood left me just a shell of a person. I couldn’t remember what it was like to be happy. I couldn’t remember that feeling. I couldn’t remember what it was like to have hobbies and enjoy them. To see something that sparked some kind of feeling inside me, though I desperately tried. I enjoyed things in the present moment, but deep down I felt nothing. It had been so long, that at 26 I had accepted that this is who I was and who I was going to be for the rest of my life.

That was, until December 7th, 2020. The death of someone I loved so dearly pushed me off the deep end, and I was forced to feel all those emotions that I lacked for years all at once. Like a rogue wave in the ocean, I was caught off guard and swept under, swallowing it all on the way down. I hit the bottom, and remembered that I needed to breathe. That I needed to keep fighting.

I couldn’t keep ignoring my problems and hoping that they would go away. I couldn’t keep thinking that I would somehow wake up one day and just be “happy”. This isn’t how I had to be. I could change and I could be happy by my own hand, if I just put in the effort to swim.

So I made my resolution in the sand, that I would be better, that I would be different, that I would be happy. I loved my uncle, but I wouldn’t be him. I couldn’t. I pushed off the bottom and started to swim.

I began to do the things I used to love. I picked up a pencil and began to draw. I picked up a brush and began to paint. I read a book and I let the words sink in. I stood outside and I breathed in deeply. I appreciated every hue of color in the sunset, every leaf on every branch in the trees, and every blade of grass beneath my feet. I extended love and understanding where I didn’t before. I stopped arguing and started letting go. I appreciated my loved ones and the time I had with them like never before. With every pass of my fingers through the water, I was closer to breathing. To being back on the surface.

Still treading through the depths, pushing harder some times, and less others. I can see the rays of light penetrating the surface, reaching downward. This resolution is more than just a simple change. It’s more than something that I can just give up and try again next year. It’s seeing the world differently than I have for years. Its deciding to try, even when I don’t want to. It’s knowing that my life matters and it always has. It’s about seeing that my life is worth living.