The 2024 of 2024.
In the run of things, 2024 was one of the hardest years of my life. It began with a friend dying unexpectedly, and it ended with a new heart wound that I'm still processing. It's been dark around here these days. It's been dark for ages, actually.
My Dad's cancer was confirmed before Thanksgiving, the Wednesday the week before, to be precise. In a phone call, as he was driving home (and stopping to see my Mom), I called him, and he told me. He'd barely found out himself. Then . . . Then, I made a phone call to an old friend of mine. Little did I know that act would undo me. Back in 2020, shortly after my sister passed, I was told that when it came to the heartbreaking, bad news, we called each other . . . no more texting things like "my sister has cancer" and "my sister died." It made sense; she insisted that we call from now on. In all these years of being separated by ocean and countries, I didn't randomly call. I thought Dad's cancer was of value. It wasn't. I was told not to call again and that people have their own lives. The words still echo in my head. Of things to break me and my heart, this event is in the top five.
I know I'm not unique, and everyone goes through this phase of life. Sometimes the colors of life are vibrant, sometimes they are dark, and sometimes you are alone with no one near. But, I do think about eight hours after learning about my Dad, I was allowed to be sad, a bit melancholy, and fearful about how to navigate the subsequent phases of life. It's all unfair that my siblings passed, and even if they were here, Andy Jr. and Vinnita wouldn't have been great in this situation. It would have still been on me. Though my Mom's been in a nursing home since late June, and now Dad has taken on a level of need none of us could have predicted. He's always been the healthy one. Those who have told me to reach out these days have been kind, but I won't. Twenty-plus years of friendship are gone, and my trust level in life is down the drain. It was already low, but newer events (even after this phone call) have blown it out of the water. One day, it will all feel distant and far away, or so I'm told. There's more, but I don't reveal much as it goes. Even here, what feels like a lot is less than a tenth.
Dad's first surgical encounter came out well, but not after he hemorrhaged one night. After a week in the ICU and a couple days in the regular ward, I finally got to bring him and his new tracheostomy home. His throat and lung cancer don't prohibit him from driving, so he promptly tricked me into coffee from Wawa (it's really that good). Yeah, he then slid into the driver's seat, which--per usual--being a passenger princess with him is like skydiving sans a parachute. Thanksgiving was me driving two hours to Dad and seeing Mom on the drive back (she's halfway between).
Things got better; I finished the semester on Zoom, giving more than one lecture from the car (while Dad drove and more than once from parking lots). Dad and I did some shopping; I trolled him in public, asking if he wanted the Twinkies boxers for Christmas . . . as I held them up high in the store. Ironically, or without (we can't decide), on what would have been my brother's fifty-fifth birthday, Dad ended up at the ER. His trach needed tweaking, in this case, a new one, and not before one young doctor frightened us, thinking he needed emergency airway surgery. He didn't need surgery, but he spent another week in the hospital. It was a long night until the morning of the 24th when we learned the better news. We were all apart for Christmas, as Dad insisted I not drive to him. My exhaustion was showing, but it is what it is, as we say. We did a video chat with him from Mom's room. We survived, though.
I've had my fill of gas station coffee, and--at this point--I can tell you the best and worst of I-95 from Rocky Mount, NC, to Richmond, VA. Doing this alone is awful. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. I'm here--in North Carolina--for a while, working remotely, as radiation and chemo are treatments that I need to help him get to and manage.
Yet, Dad got stable enough in time for me to head back for my infusion (barely a three-day sojourn). I also needed to bring my car down since I'm here until the seasons change. We don't know which season it is yet. As Dad drove me to the airport, I got an anonymous email. It stated the names and dates of two long-term relationships my ex had while with me. The entire time we were together, years worth, he was with someone else. The. Entire. Time. We had ended again, again, in April. Things had been quiet all these months.
Just as I make peace with him and me, the ending(s) and the loss, he surfaces in my life again. This time. . . Someone blew up my peace by sending me details about him that I never needed to know. I was moving on just fine. I was making peace and finding my ground again. Yet, now, I sit here feeling more defeated than ever. To say I feel like a fool is an understatement. To say I've never felt so devastated is true. The initial shock is gone, but it is still there. I still remember how much I loved him and how much my heart hurt with the breakup (the first time). It's all replaying again and again.
Our lives have been replaying in my mind. When we were dancing in the kitchen, she was texting him. When we were lounging by the fire, he told me he was talking to someone from work for hours and hours, but I guess it was not. Instead, the message he responded to while we were furniture shopping, the text from the pub, the checking of the phone's messages when we let the vehicle's breaks cool coming down from Pike's Peak . . . when he brought up marriage, all of those times he brought it up . . . I guess none of it was real after all. I wonder which memory was just us and which was us and someone else I couldn't see in the shadows.
I guess I'm glad I didn't stay and bail on my NYC life early.
Why I got the late Christmas give of that email, two days after the holiday, is beyond me. As I said, I could have lived my life perfectly fine, moved on, and at peace not knowing any of it. I know their names and faces now. I know their locations. I now know nothing was true, and it was a lie.
It's not the cheating that's bad; it's the lie.
2424 was a year. My Mom ended up in a nursing home due to a broken leg, which led to emergency surgery (I was supposed to be in Greece for five weeks, but I came back after four for it); Dad got "a lot of cancer" as he says, I dated some in the aftermath of the ex, summer romances failed, the fall was an overwhelming stream of chaos, stress, and work, I published some, found out what's thought of me, and it ended with an anonymous email.
The year ends with a charcoal burn. At some point, I'll be social again. Perhaps.
Decisions and goals are made. They are my own, much like the demands of my life. I've always trusted little, let out little (even now), and--as life has shown--I'll stay that way.
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