2023 was the worst year of my life. Kind of unequivocally, honestly. I’ve had bad years. 2023 is the first to try to kill me, though. A couple times, in fact. Even as it spared me, it still found a way to take two very important people out of my life. Thousands of dollars in debt from medical bills. Depression. Anxiety attacks at the worst times. The shadow of this year will cast long over my shoulder far into 2024. While I can leave the year behind, some things will still follow.
I say that to say this: I’m a very lucky person. As I write this, I’m staring at the sun setting on the Pacific Ocean, midway through my second week in my home that I wish I could call home, Maui. In fact,as I stare out towards the vastness of the water, I see a spout from a Humpback Whale, like me clinging to the last hour of afternoon sunlight before the sun disappears over the horizon. I cannot even speak to the importance of this trip both mentally, but physically.
For the better part of two months, i’d been limping every day. Me limping isn’t anything new. My left ankle is eroding on me. Painful but not wholly unexpected. After a car accident destroyed my life when I was 17, I was told by docts that by the time I hit this point in my life, there was a distinct possibility that I would need my hip, ankle, and/or knee replaced. A year ago, I would have believed you on the knee. That was also 50 pounds ago. Going from 310 lbs to 260 has done wonders for my knee. It rarely fights me like it used to. My hip has never been much of an issue. But the ankle is a reminder of the foolishness of my youth. If i’m on it for too long, especially on the concrete floors of warehouses, the pain creeps back. Then the pain gets worse. Then the pain stays.
Since Halloween, it was fairly common to have swelling the size of a tennis ball on the outside of my foot. I’ve seen doctors and specialists. All say it looks like a sprain. They have been saying this for several years. They all say the same thing for recovery: rest. Unfortunately, in my line of work, at the busiest time of year, rest is not something I have the option of getting. In fact, I work for a company that routinely considers a work week for a salaried employee to be 50 hours. During holiday season, though, the expectation lurches closer to 62-65 hours. I spent so many days waking up in pain, ready to cry, ready to give up. Inevitably, I would always just swallow a handful of Ibuprofren and try to grin and bear it for 13 hours a day, five days a week.
Being here has given me the ability to operate at my pace and not have to push it. My ankle is pain free right now. I know that i’ll go back to work and probably redevelop the swelling and pain. Short of quitting my job, there isn’t much I can control about it. I cannot control everything.
I had a couple panic attacks at work. I was generally able to steer my way out of them. Some worse than others. But I always managed my way because I had employees that trusted me for guidance, and I couldn’t let them feel like I couldn’t be there to help them and get us through the night. I’m not one to abandon the team, no matter how bad things get. That’s why I’m a Chicago sports fan, after all.
But then I had a full-on breakdown Christmas Eve. The year finally came crashing down on me and it felt like the walls were closing in, slowly crushing me. All sound turned into loud static. I could feel my heart trying to beat out of my chest. I realized that I had to remind myself to breath at regular intervals because it felt like my brain was short circuiting and not allowing me to do it on my own.
How did I get to that point? 2023.
I’ve already written about nearly dying twice this year and the hospital visits that went with it. I’ve written about getting half of my colon removed to try to help slow down these experiences from happening.
What I haven’t written about is the deep sense of depression and imposter syndrome you start to feel when you survive these things. What have I done that merits me to get to keep going? Would it have been better to flame out in those moments and leave the world with the memory everyone had of me in that moment, rather than to have them keep experiencing me? These are actual questions that have rattled through my head off and on for most of the year now. It changes you. It makes you quieter, more introspective. It also drives you out of your mind if you dwell on it too much. It drove me off the wall to think about it. I’d blast music, throw myself into a tv show, anything to avoid thinking about it.
It catches you in the quiet moments, though. When you have nothing else to reckon with but your thoughts.
The feeling has subsided. But it did do it’s part to ruin my summer. I became withdrawn. When I did want to do something and people didn’t want to follow my plan, I tended to blow up. I was the one that nearly died. Why aren’t you following me, the survivor?
Logically, this is a stupid way to go through life. Not dying is an art form perfected by most. Some make it easier than others. The fact that I insist on doing it with the difficulty level cranked towards “expert” is more an indictment on me than anything else. It’s another thing, though, that creeps into your mind.
Like I said, i’m writing this while watching the horizon turn a beautiful color of golden orange. My wife, who has never wavered in her support of me over the year, even though there were many times she could have justifiably jumped off the ride at any point, is here reading a book with me. I’ve gotten to reconnect one of my oldest friendships with my friend Joe and his wonderful wife Ashley and their spectacular children. It’s really endearing to be called Mr. Brandon as Lil Joe hands me a knife and a beer, asking me to shotgun it for him, then chastise me because it wasn’t fast enough for his liking.
Joe’s sister is here with her husband and kids as well. As are his parents. They have been friends with our family for so long that we just refer to them as cousins because they are like family at this point.
Which is why it’s so disappointing my family isn’t here, as well.
Some cancelled their trip for very valid reasons, which will make more sense below. Some just didn’t want to. I’d been planning the trip for 10 months. I’d had my room rented since April! I tried to drum up the momentum constantly. Slowly but surely though, everyone bailed.
I’m not crying over spilled milk. I promise. This is their loss. I’m on day 10 in paradise with a few more to go. They are in Illinois, where the weather is complete and unadulterated ass. I’ve had a great time. In fact, I probably wouldn’t have mustered the strength to write this if I wasn’t here. I needed this. I needed every moment of it. I needed to lay out on the beach. I needed to see the whales. I needed to hang out with Joe and his family. 2023 for me was Andy Dufresne in Shawshank Redemption, climbing through a river of shit and coming out clean on the other side, headed for the Pacific Ocean.
I still wish they were here, though. There were some sentimental things I desperately wanted to do with them. Sentimental for this reason…
My grandma passed away in November.
Not just my grandma, but my grandma Pat, who raised me quite a bit when I was younger. I spent every Friday night at her house for years. Part of it was fun for me to get out. It was like a little vacation every week. But part of it was also to fill the void of my grandfather dying in 1991 and my grandma being completely on her own for the first time in more than 40 years. I was there nearly every Friday night up through middle school.
When things got bad at home, I always returned. There were two points when I had to leave my parents house. My dad and I are too much alike and neither had figured out proper ways of dealing with that fact, yet. My grandma was always there to take me in. While I might act and have the blood pressure and massive cranial structure of my father, I get my looks, well, still from my dad. I’m shaped like Bill Dautrive from King of the Hill, and so is he. But a lot of my looks are my grandpa. I didn’t really notice it until I saw a picture of my grandma and grandpa together when he was my age. We are exactly alike, from the baldness to the hair swood to the never-quite-full smile in pictures, even if we are happy.
She meant the world to me, and I eulogized her at the funeral as best as I could. It was generally given warm kudos for my work, though my dad said early on that he was afraid it wasn’t going to descend into a roast quickly*.
*It was but I pumped the brakes. Everyone looked so sad, and when my opening line got laughs, I went into kind of a “first comic to get up at Moe Joes Open Mic” knee jerk reaction. If you can hit laughs in the first 15 seconds, you might be onto something. Tragedy + time = comedy. That said, there were a lot of people there and i’m not sure anyone was specifically hoping for me to blow through the light and do a hot ten. So I played it (mostly) heartfelt and sentimental the rest of the way.
I never let myself process my grandma’s death, though. I returned to work too soon and was miserable to deal with. The fact that I didn’t get fired in the first week I came back is a miracle. I also quit sleeping. Too be honest, up until I went on vacation, I couldn’t go to sleep without taking an edible or several melatonin. My sleep schedule is messed up as it is working the overnight shift. I was quickly lurching towards 8-9 am every morning trying to fall asleep without help. It was hard. The void was too massive in my life and instead of coping and trying to fill that void, I simply pretended it didn’t exist. It came back to haunt me.
Then, a month later, Christina’s grandmother died.
Whereas my grandma felt inevitable for many of us that were around towards the end, Nettie caught everyone off guard. In fact, as recently as a couple weeks before she passed, she had spoken to my wife about how excited she was that I was going to attend her families Christmas Eve party for the first time, to accommodate the fact that Christina and I were blowing off all family activities on Christmas Day to go to a warmer climate.
Nettie was always the member of Christina’s family I was trying hardest to impress. She kind of felt like the gatekeeper between myself and Christina. I always worked to be on my best behavior around her. Much like my grandma, Nettie played a huge role in raising Christina. Losing my grandma was the last grandparent in my family. For Nettie, it was her first. All I could do was be there for her, as she was there for me a few weeks prior.
It is tough, though. Stacking losses like that. A year that had gone bad was ending on this epic, horrifying crescendo.
But i’m still here. I survived. I still have a deep group of friends. I still have a large, sometimes frustrating family. While so many people are struggling, i’m watching the evening sky give way to night, where the stars just seem to shine brighter here.
I’m a very lucky person. Sometimes I just need to remind myself of it.
Fancy Boys Club 