New Year’s Eve and Separation

How are you feeling?

It’s 6 pm on New Year’s Eve of the worst fucking year, ever.

I’m working on a very extensive photo album I promised my daughter, it’s taken me 3 days of nonstop work and I’m halfway done. While my computer searches for files, I’m occupying myself by streaming Netflix, working on crafts, and writing two other Medium articles.

I’m streaming Schitt’s Creek for the umpteenth time. Partially paying attention, I’m listening to the dialog between these incredibly well-developed characters as they fall in and out of love. Specifically, when Alexis gets the courage to tell Ted (the guy she dumped) that she loves him.

I love you. I’m in love with you. And I know I really don’t have any right to say that to you. And also, I know you’re in a relationship, and I’m happy for you, I really am. I just feel like if I didn’t tell you how I felt, I would literally go insane. You’re the sweetest man I’ve ever known. And that’s it.

That hit too close to home.

Perhaps it’s the emotional nature of the other Medium article I wrote. Perhaps it’s the Netflix show streaming. Perhaps it’s the end of a year that ended both my marriage and a relationship with someone I fell in love with (scary that they’re not the same). But suddenly I became overwhelmed that this is the first time I’ve been single on New Year’s Eve in 20 years. Even when my husband and I separated a decade ago, I was seeing someone else by the end of the year.

While I don’t “need” a guy, it’s an odd state to be in. I was 23 the last time I was single on New Year’s Eve. I had only lived in the United States for two months. More importantly, I had only lived on my own for two months. It was a mix of learning how to adult, how to assimilate in another country, and ramping up on my new job. Being in a relationship meant nothing to me; I figured I’d have an arranged marriage despite that my old age of 23 meant I had reduced groom options.

There is security to having a significant other when going into the new year. I never noticed it, figuring that being in a bad marriage is the equivalent of singlehood. Now that I no longer have it, it gives me a bad sense of doom. I mean, not doom like the world is going to implode. Let’s not get dramatic here, people. Doom like when you’ve left the house without your cell phone.

When leaving your cell behind for the day, it feels like something is missing. I need to reconnect with whatever is missing to feel complete again. To feel relief.

I feel edgy and out of sorts. Probably an appropriate way to end 2020.

I’m reminding myself that change is good. Change means growth. While being single on New Year’s Eve during a pandemic is the default state for most people this year, I’m chalking up this feeling like a necessary milestone post-breakup. The question I’m asking myself is: why am I feeling this way? What is it that’s going on internally that I can’t fulfill on my own tonight?

Do I have an answer? This a learning experience and an opportunity to delve into a part of me that has been dormant for twenty years. As we go into 2021, I’m making a conscious effort to acknowledge when I feel crappy and identify the root cause. Not everything can be solved with an external entity, like a love interest or alcohol. It’s all on me.

By 10:30 pm (still working on this project), I figured out the source of my New Year’s malaise. I do not feel fulfilled right now and I’m going into 2021 without the ability to do much about it. I wrote a list of the goals I want to accomplish in the near future and almost all of them hinge on things being open again, as well as my kids being back in school full-time.

While I still don’t feel overly optimistic tonight as the year draws to a close, I no longer have the Something-is-Missing Anxiety. As always, I’m a work in progress and shifting my perspective is on my to-do list.

A huge Happy New Year’s to the readers who have sent me wonderful, supportive messages this year!