“New Year, New me.”..Again.

“What are your New Years resolutions?” My mom asked.

I sighed, and gracelessly shoved another generous mound of spaghetti into my mouth. We were video chatting on Facebook Messenger, a roughly weekly routine we established after I moved back out of her house earlier this year. I hadn’t lived at home since I was 17, but the pandemic destroyed me.

“Honestly mom, I just want to survive this year. The universe has already shown me multiple times how much it genuinely thinks my life is a joke, so asking for anything else feels like asking for too much.” I said.

The twinge of sadness I felt that was interwoven into my general annoyance caught me off guard. I know she meant well. She- like everyone else- was trying to find some kind of tradition to hold onto, no matter how small. That doesn’t mean I didn’t still find it annoying. I’m not really one for tradition, nor did I really subscribe to the whole “new year, new me” mentality. I was- more often than not- the exact same introverted “type A” on January 1st that I was the night before.

That being said, I knew deep down as I sat in my computer chair with my favorite comforting refined carbohydrate in hand, my life could use some change. Not in the “lets leave your life in blazing ruins while Nero fiddles” kind of way though, I’ve had enough of that. I was overdue for a win.

2020 annihilated me. It left me utterly broken: mentally, physically, financially, and emotionally. 2020 took a bat to my knees with all the vigor and aggression of someone delivering a hit to the nads in an Adam Sandler movie.

Before the universe decided I was having way to good of a time as a struggling millennial and decided to put my life on “expert mode”, I was studying to become a teacher. It was my 3rd career in 10 years as I am both extremely indecisive and easily bored. I loved teaching though. Don‘t get me wrong, It was bone crushingly hard. I was poor, worked way to many hours, and lived in a glorified closet in East Harlem with my husband and 2 dogs, but I loved it. I taught middle schoolers, their awkwardness with life rivaled mine. We had fun.

That all came to a screeching halt when my husband of nearly 8 years contracted COVID-19.

His fever started on a Thursday and by that next Tuesday he was being loaded into an ambulance on his way to Metropolitan Hospital with a 104 degree fever and pneumonia.

I didn’t see him again for 132 days.

In my apartment alone for 21 days quarantining, I saw him only through a screen. He was sick and I couldn’t be with him. To give him as much company as possible I stayed on FaceBook Messenger video chat with him.

I watched as they transferred him to the ICU.

as they put him on a ventilator.

as they told me he was going to die.

My mother and friends intervened at this point because I was essentially in solitary confinement while being tortured. Edmond Dantés would’ve been proud. He learned Italian and how to read in prison, I learned how to order delivery from Whole Foods at 3am on less than 2 hours of sleep and pay my light bill. I was rescued from my apartment with my dogs the 2nd week of April and didn’t return until July.

Every single day felt as if it was both slipping through my fingers faster than I could possibly register, and a thick immovable blob of wet cement. Time was barely a concept I understood anymore. My entire life revolved around saving my husband’s.

Day in and day out I waited by my phone in my mother’s old worn kitchen. Sitting in the exact same seat I did my homework in as a kid. Where I talked to my friends on the corded phone as a teenager. Where as an adult I swapped stories with my mom over coffee. Oddly enough, it seemed only right to be going through this awfulness there too.

I lived in constant anxious agitation for the hospital to call. Everyday was a waiting game to either receive scraps of information about his waning odds of survival, or tell me he finally died. Throughout the days he had his leg amputated, was vented for 71 days, and suffered nerve damage among many other things. He was finally released from the hospital on August 4th with a shiny new wheelchair our insurance didn’t cover, and a huge smile. He’s thankfully recovered almost fully- minus one leg of course.

My mental health, on the other hand is... still recovering. I’m anxious and chronically tired. Many days if feel deeply akin to either the loveable yet overly caffinated Tweak from South Park or Chicken Little. Either I have so much caffeine just barely function my brain feels like its going to vibrate out of existence, or I panic and obsessively wonder when when the sky is finally going to fall on my head and take me out for good.

Fortunately, despite everything life has thrown at me I don’t think I’m a lost cause yet. I’ve decided this year to change my outlook on New Years traditions and maybe my life in general. I think it’s time to take the reins back from the drunk driver that is the universe and run my own life for a bit.

My fresh start is going to be a mental one. I dont care about losing weight- you can pry my bread from my cold dead hands- or reading more. Those things are great, but more than anything I need to clean out the dusty traumatic closet that is my brain. I’m going to start journaling my experiences, working more with my therapist, and in general expressing myself more. That’s really all I can handle for right now. I’m sure more things will get added as I mentally heal and make room.

I hung up with my mom and told her I love her, something my family does entirely to little of. I pulled out my dusty journal and polished off the last bite of my pasta.

It wont be a “New Year, New Me.” But I’m hoping for a “New year. Better me.”.