Dear 2023

With all due disrespect, fuck you! Clutch your pearls if you must, but I said what I said, and with my whole chest. Blessings to those you chose to shower with abundance, but as for me and mine, you single handedly go down in history as the worst year in my lifetime. See, your homie 2020 kicked off this three-year avalanche with a diagnosis, core friendships falling apart, and a taxing and lonely spiritual awakening all while COVID-19 wreaked havoc on the entire world. When the pandemic ended, I attempted to resume some sense of normalcy like everybody else but the blows just kept coming. Knocking the wind out of me from every angle, then non-stop for 18 months straight. I couldn’t catch my breath between hits. Loss after loss, with no time to process what had just hit me before getting hit again. The last blow took me out, and this fighter has been lying flat on the mat ever since. I could publish a novel if I wrote about everything you did, so why don’t we just go over the heavy hitters… the “2023 highlight reel,” if you will.

DIVORCE

My ex-husband and I met in our church youth group when we were in high school. We built a genuine friendship that led to a 20 year on-and-off romantic relationship, with other relationships in between. We married and divorced briefly in our early 20s, but our roller coaster romance led us back to matrimony in 2020, with our final split at the height of the pandemic. The separation was amicable, so we opted to cohabitate platonically as roommates until the world stabilized. 

Now, it’s one thing to share a living space with your estranged spouse, but it’s another to do so and watch them move on with someone else. Which is exactly what happened to us in the summer of 2022. We both started dating other people and suddenly our 2,800 square foot house felt more like a studio apartment. We lived in a war zone for six months and the tension between us was so thick you could  cut through it with a machete. Our fights became frequent and combative, and eventually shattered any hope of reconciling our 20 year friendship after the divorce.

So I’d lost my marriage… again, but also lost a best friend and support system I’d treasured since I was 17 years old. Gut punch. 

Only for the relationship I’d moved on to, to abruptly end. WTF?! 

My sisters and I were on a much needed weekend getaway when my then boyfriend provoked the most outlandish and unfounded argument that exposed a side of himself that I’d never seen before. It quite literally came out of left field. In a matter of minutes, I went from the “queen of his life” to a “bitch,” and many other colorful things, and he ended our relationship. I remember looking at the phone dumbfounded because I sincerely couldn’t believe what I was hearing. We’d argued before, but it had never been disrespectful. The whole situation gave me emotional whiplash. It’s amazing how after months of dating, conversation, and time spent together you can still really not know someone. 

I didn’t have time to sit in the reality or impact of the break up because I had a 5 bedroom house to pack up by myself and relocate as soon as we got back from our trip. So I swallowed my feelings telling myself that I was “unbothered” and “it was his loss,” …blah blah blah, all of the self-soothing lies we tell ourselves after a breakup. I quickly realized the depth of my denial when the anger, disappointment, loneliness, sadness, confusion, grief, etc. hit me like a ton of bricks when trying to settle into my new place.

SADIDI CHANTEL

We found our house at the onset of COVID-19, and unbeknownst to us we’d chosen it at the perfect time. It became a compound and refuge for family and friends as we all navigated the challenges and uncertainties of the pandemic. We hosted frequent gatherings – cookouts, game nights, holiday festivities, birthday parties – and created so many amazing memories in that house. I loved my home. I loved my life in that home. It was exactly what I’d envisioned for the suburban life I’d always wanted, well other than a pandemic, a failing marriage, and my fur baby’s health decline. 

I got Sadidi Chantel from the humane society when I moved home after college. She was 7 weeks old and could fit in the palm of my hand. Always a happy dog, never hurt a fly. Barked at everything that moved but ran away as soon as you stepped towards her. She was 12 years old and showing signs of aging when we moved into the house, and each year the signs got increasingly worse. She started losing weight, as well as her hearing and eyesight, she developed and was treated for various medical ailments, and her arthritis made her vulnerable to falling down the stairs. 

Her mood and health declined drastically after the divorce and move. She started sleeping a lot more,  having accidents around the house, her appetite diminished,  and her arthritis worsened to the point that she couldn’t go on walks anymore and I had to carry her in and out to go potty. I became her full-time caregiver, and although I didn’t mind, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t take a toll on both my physical and mental health. She was my fur baby, so I’d do it again, plus ten times over. 

Now one may think that with all of her health challenges that the conversation about euthanasia would’ve come up at some point. However, I thought that was something that had to be recommended by a veterinarian, so I never brought it up. I didn’t know I had that authority. But when her liver stopped functioning, I had to make the gut-wrenching decision. Next available appointment was three days later. 

I’m eternally grateful that my mom came and stayed with us, because those were three of the longest and most emotional days of my life. Tending to my fur baby at her sickest and trying to keep her comfortable, while showering her with love and affection knowing that these were the last days I’d get to spend with her. There are no words. Everything I read and had been told about a pet transition was true. It was peaceful and she looked like she’d fallen asleep, just as she had so many times before. But it didn’t prevent the heartbreak, and the wail that came out of me on that veterinarian’s floor hugging Sadidi’s lifeless body is a sound that still echoes in my soul to this day. 

DANCE PRODUCTION

The month before Sadidi’s transition I’d started working on a stage production, the “Praise & Worship Dance Showcase,” a show I’d successfully produced before. I was excited to do the production because it was my first show since before the pandemic, and I figured it would be a good way to tap back into my creativity after not doing so in a few years. Now, I’ve produced several stage shows in my career and have dealt with, and come to expect, an array of unexpected mishaps but I have never had so many come up in one production. This was a struggle from day one. Every time I turned around there was another problem, from securing the venue, auditions, technical issues, cast conflicts, ticket sales, injuries etc. My stress level was through the roof and I was running myself into the ground trying to bring the show to the stage. Everything came to a head two weeks before the show, with separate cast and vendor problems that could not be resolved before the performance. So I had to make yet another gut-wrenching decision and canceled the show. 

Canceling a show amidst selling tickets, after promoting on social media for months is one of the most embarrassing and disappointing things an artist has to do in my opinion. As an artist, you want to share your work, so to have to pack it all up after months of blood, sweat, tears, and money invested was heartbreaking. Even with a justifiable reason to cancel, it was damn near impossible not to feel like a failure. 

In retrospect, I realize that the show was a distraction from processing the grief that was compounding. If I’m honest, depression had snuck in the back door at some point and set up residence without my knowledge, and was slowly consuming me. Especially after Sadidi’s passing, which was the week before rehearsals began. Severe fatigue set in after I canceled the show. I was so mentally drained that it started to take a physical toll. All I wanted to do was sleep. I could feel myself reaching my breaking point.

Overwhelmed and sinking deeper into this depressive state, you, 2023, threw the most unexpected curveball and concreted yourself as the worst year of my life. 

MY BEST FRIEND

I could barely sleep, and when I did it was sporadic and unrestful. The depth of my sadness was unlike anything I’d ever felt before, and my rage was so aggressive that it scared me. Soon came the panic attacks, which worried my mom because she remembered how bad they were when my dad passed. 

So many things happened over the course of December, with a lot still to process, but I remember clinging to moments of comfort I gleaned from the beautiful tributes and reflections given at both her funeral and memorial. People shared stories, wrote or read poetry, sang songs, and expressed how much of an impact she made on their lives. I chose to dance. It was the perfect way for me to honor her because she loved to see me dance. She was one of my biggest fans and supporters of my artistry and was so upset when I retired from dancing. When we were younger, she’d always joke that she wanted me to figure out how to both be in the bridal party and dance a solo at her future wedding, in two different dresses… and was low-key serious.

I decided not to choreograph but to freestyle instead, so I could dance freely from my heart to her, one last time. It didn’t go as planned. I could barely hear the music which impacted my timing and expression, but more importantly, about ¾ of the way through, I felt like I was going to pass out. So I gracefully danced up the middle aisle and out of the sanctuary doors before the song ended. It wasn’t abrupt, and according to the feedback, people thought it was intentional, but with no appetite and losing so much weight in such a short amount of time, I was too weak to finish. I collapsed to the ground and wept as soon as I stepped in the foyer. Not because of the physical exhaustion, but because I felt like I’d let her down. I was furious and disappointed in myself for not being able to finish the dance. I kept apologizing aloud and telling her that I did the best I could, as family friends gathered to help me back to my dressing room. I didn’t realize how much the dance meant to me until that very second. It was our last moment, my chance to say goodbye, and I’d fucked it up. I was heartbroken. 

The world went on to roast chestnuts on an open fire, have a happy new year, and go back to their day-to-day lives…but not me. I was buried at rock bottom under the rubble of your damage, 2023.

What now? Where do I go from here? Where do I start?

I didn’t know the answers to those questions, but what I did know was in order to figure them out I had to be honest with myself. Honest about how I felt, where I was, and what I needed.

So there you have it. That’s where I am. Overwhelmed with processing the depth of this grief and fighting depression everyday with everything I have left. But I am still choosing to embark on this healing journey, even with a crawl. 

I will emerge from under the rubble. 

I will climb out from rock bottom. 

I will see the mountain top again. 

In my time, on my terms, and how it best serves me.

For the first time in my life, I am truly prioritizing my needs and walking in who I am regardless of how it makes anybody else feel – and I do mean anybody. I have no choice. I don’t have it in me to appease anymore. I know of and can see the faces of some who are not going to like it and/or me and I sincerely don’t have the capacity to care. I’ve now experienced emotional pain much worse than disapproval, absence, or rejection … I’ll live. 

Perhaps, that is the only thing I will thank you for, 2023…stripping me of that people pleasing bullshit.

Cheers to that! Now go to hell.