Reality: I went into 2020 mid-divorce, excited and ready for my new and improved life in California and ended it alone in my Dallas apartment, battling COVID-19 and crying over some guy that had moved on after I dumped him (how DARE he).

I’ve been trying to write this for days. Some days it was my fever that kept me from being able to look at a screen, but mostly it’s been a lot of HOW am I going to fit the load of shit that was this last year into a post and not sound like a depressed lump. It would be disingenuous to turn this into a gratitude post, because while there were wonderful friendships made and built upon, lessons learned, I got to keep my job amidst a pandemic, etc- that has not been the vibe of the year for me.

I got divorced. I left a severely unhealthy relationship that was slowly killing both of us, and we are both better for it. That’s the gratitude version. My reality is that I have a serious pattern to break if I am ever to have a successful relationship, and the depth I must go to break that pattern has proven to be deep, ugly, and almost unbearable. Around the same time I decided that was a road that needed to be taken, my health took a turn. I was diagnosed with a transformed migraine- which means the migraine troubles I have struggled with for years had slowly formed into one continuous migraine with brief intervals of relief.

Around the same time, my therapist and I were unwrapping my experience with rape and sexual assault, the effect it has had on my intimate affairs and relationship with myself, and began the deeply personal journey of acceptance and healing. The combination of these things, the pandemic, and new responsibilities at work sent me for a tailspin and I decided to take a week off of work to decompress and rest. Instead, I fell into one of the deepest depressions I have ever experienced.

I truly feel as though I clawed my way out. I am unsure when or how, as even the memory of the combination of physical and emotional pain is overwhelming. I got back to dating, a welcomed distraction until I fell hard and subsequently… ran away screaming.

(Side note, I also got strep throat for the first time in my life, and had an allergic reaction to amoxicillin- very 2020).

This all leads me to December of 2020. Where it is all supposed to turn into a big ball of gratitude. There are some good things. I have started a new regimen for my migraines, one that I’ll have to continue forever but that has no side effects and significantly reduced migraines (this is a huge win!). I hope that with this comes better work productivity and less depressive episodes. I have taken the biggest leap of my life in making the decision to jump head first into the many traumas of my life. I am not yet grateful for this. It has led me to the darkest places I have ever been, emotional black holes that feel impossible to climb out of. Sometimes I feel so broken that I wonder if I’ll ever be whole enough to truly share my life and myself with anyone else. Yet- this is STILL a win. I have the wherewithal to do the work, the knowledge that a new life is on the other side, and the guts to do it. I don’t ever want to paint a pretty picture around trauma work, the exhaustion that ensues. I have spent the last year wondering if I would lose my job, my friends, my lust for life, my spark, my joy. What I know is that I can’t stay in the middle of it. It’s one thing to live as I have before this year- either blissfully unaware or willing to keep up with distractions, but it would be another to continue, knowing. As I approached 2021 with a fever, staring at the same walls I have been for the past 9 months, I was reminded I am walking into this new year with the same baggage I started it with, but a new understanding of what needs to be done and that I can’t stop here. What I hope in my heart is that I am closer to my awakening than I realize, and that I can come back to you with the Lindsay that is in here somewhere trying to get out. I pray for mercy as I continue this journey. Love y’all.