All is Quiet, on New Years Day

 It was a year and a day ago.

New Years' eve, bringing in 2020. America was booming, people seemed generally content and social, while on the other side of the globe an unknown virus was stealthily beginning to make its way out of a farmers' market in some city in China most of us had never heard of. Times Square was a sea of faces, as per tradition. All in all, life in America was pretty good.

Not for me; it was anything but. Fresh off a breakup of a relationship I thought  was going to last forever, I arrived that evening home from my emergency department shift around 11:30pm alone and full of rage and self-pity. I anguished over the now perennial grief of  my children not in my life, a feeling so built into my daily existence that it had almost become background noise....that is, except, for that evening, where it torpedoed any semblance of serenity. On previous NYEs  Cassie had been with me, at my side, with her soothing presence. I remember being in her home exactly one year prior, where we had ordered up huge quantities of pizza for us, her daughters, and their friends while we sat on her ample sofa watching the festivities on New Year’s Rocking Eve with Anderson Cooper. It felt good- the girlfriend, the teen activity, the happy noises. I felt part of something very, very comforting.

One year later she was gone, and I was left with nothing but a compilation of intense memories and heavy sense of  grief. So enraged over my isolation, I took it upon myself then-and-there to box up all reminders of her,  eliminate any trace of her. I rid my home of any remnants that reminded me that for the better part of two years we had practically lived together.  That night, exactly a year-and-a-day ago, I was on a roll- I expanded my emotional purge and removed the kid's pictures, ripping them off the wall and cursing their names. Somehow, in a twisted way I felt vindicated. What I ultimately had turned into that night was an alcoholic in long-term recovery having an emotional relapse and channeling it into a huge self-centered egoic temper-tantrum.  All traces of Cassie and kids then out of sight, I watched the ball drop with a huge steaming cup of melancholy and my dog Skipper, who looked at me pathetically, and gave me an occasional whimper.

But...what a difference a year makes. Today, I no longer grieve Cassie. I realize our breakup was as important as our relationship. Over the year 2020 the children have reached out to me in a limited way, and I have practiced my acceptance. I received my COVID immunization. I  met a woman whom I adore and rocks my world, a partner who out of the goodness of her heart made me a birthday dinner with close friends. We have spent the week within each others' reach, enjoying the quiet of the Virginia countryside while also visiting Washington, D.C. We brought in the new year in our own special way. It felt good; more than good. Much more.

This morning, in the freezing January mist,  I went for my first run of 2021 with Skipper. We had the roads all to ourselves. Barely a sound. 

All is quiet, on New Years' Day.