Fuck You 2019

As I sit in the W in Dallas, looking at the skyline, watching cars speed by, I realize I made it. 2019 will be over in the next few hours and I am still breathing. I take a second to watch my chest pulse up and down as I breath. I am living and I made it.

2019 has tried to take me out. I have been tested on every turn. In Feb, Sam totaled his car on his way to work. Hearing his shaking voice on my phone broke me. But we made it through and made it through purchasing a new car. Purchasing a new car under high stress can ruin any relationship, yet, we made it. Sam let me negotiate and I let Sam pick the car. Best of both worlds.

Traveling almost every week and working nonstop kept me busy, but happy. In June, my father passed away suddenly. The metaphoric bus hit me without slowing and kept going. I lost my breath, my life, and my stability. I was already tired from traveling, but I now realize, I did not know what tired meant. This hit took everything out of me. I became a shell of the person I once was. I didn’t laugh, I didn’t socialize, I slept. I stayed in my house and I slept when I was not at work. When I was at work, I took often breaks to sit in my Jeep and cry; uncontrollably cry. I hated everything about myself. I did not want to continue. I was grieving and part of that grief was depression.

Grief and depression are not common to me at this caliber. I have grieved before but never to the point where I didn’t want to breath or the thought of leaving my bed was painful. I was not okay, and I needed help. Luckily, I found an amazing therapist who is able to walk with me on this journey and in September, I started to feel a sliver of myself appear from the darkness.

October ripped that away, as though two heavy weight champions took my life and decided to each rip a piece. Hearing you have cancer is terrifying. The darkness of grief started to take over me again, this time, I was grieving myself. I knew another part of me was dying, I was just not sure how many pieces I was going to lose.

2019 has been covered in darkness. Darkness that engulfs you, strangling you with the smoke it carries, leaving you grasping for breath, screaming for help with no answers. A silence that is deafening yet covered in screams of other people pain. Not only did all of this happen to me, but it happened to the people I loved as well. The pain that I was feeling, my mother, my husband, my family, my friends were all feeling it... just differently.

I was isolating myself in pain, but also isolating others going through a similar pain. Losing my father, my cancer diagnosis, affected the people around me. I just couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see others pain close to me because I have been so engulfed in my pain. On the service I was understanding but I was not there. I was not able to support the people around me and I needed to be okay with that.

I am normally the person people come to for help, but instead I was drowning. I am still drowning but I refuse to bring 2019 into 2020 with me. 2020 will have remnants of 2019, of course, but it will not have this drowning attitude. Nothing is happening to me without my consent. I am back in control and I will shine.

Fuck you 2019. Shine On 2020.