I’m finished with 2022

Ready for a fresh new start

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

I thought that 2020 was a year for the record books. My eighteen-year marriage fell apart. I moved into a new house and became a single mom. I started dating again for the first time in nearly twenty years. I worked my ass off just keeping the bills paid. Do I even need to mention Covid?

I struggled with home-schooling and custody issues. I got my first tattoo. I met a wonderful man. I landed a stable job. I thought that surely better times were ahead. And honestly, 2021 was pretty damn good. But then I met 2022 and I wasn’t prepared for another tumultuous year so damn soon. And now I’m ready for it to end.

In February of 2022, my dad couldn’t make it to my youngest daughter’s birthday party because of shoulder pain. He needed a joint replacement. But then he got sick with pneumonia and there were tests done. There was a spot on his lung. Could it be lung cancer? Tests and more tests. Biopsies and nothing definitive. It was just fluid. It was fine.

But there was something else. During one of the scans, cancer was discovered in his collar bone. His collar bone was broken. Was this the cause of the pain? Radiation therapy helped, his pain went away. I enjoyed a fun Father’s Day playing cornhole with my parents and sisters. Everything was going to be fine.

On my way home that day, I saw a fawn trapped on the interstate, trying to jump over a concrete barrier. I slowed down but it was no use. The baby deer panicked, turned around and ran across three lanes of traffic. I slowed down, praying I wouldn’t be the car to hit him. But I did. Luckily I didn’t lose control of my vehicle. My daughter was asleep and only woke when she heard me scream upon impact. I’m so glad she didn’t witness it. My daughter and I were fine. But it felt like a bad omen.

In March of 2022, that wonderful man I met in 2020 broke off our relationship with little explanation. He was depressed, concerned about his job. He couldn’t see a future where it would be possible for us to live in the same city. He was willing to give up without a fight. I let him go. If I’ve learned anything in my fifty-something years of life, it’s to know when to let go.

My company started lay-offs. I wasn’t sure I’d have a job by the end of the year. During the…