Goodbye to 2023
My horrible, no good, very bad, best year yet in review
Way back in the innocent days of the Divorce Shelter in 2015, every day I weathered explosions and threats from Piper, wept over my children I barely could see, scrambled frantically for clients as my lawyer’s bills climbed ever higher. And every night I stayed up until midnight, usually chain smoking, often accompanied by the amorous noises of my sapphic housemates. Once my phone ticked over to 12:00 AM, I took one last drag, stubbed out my cigarette, and said:
Now the day is dead, and I am not.
In less than a week, 2023 will be dead, and yet again, I will still be standing. Like the year of my first divorce, it has been a brutal twelve months. It began with me taking on freelance editing work to pay for groceries, while clashing with Karen over our non-existent sex life. I would go on to help salvage a major political campaign at the proverbial eleventh hour, with my second marriage dramatically collapsing a scant five days before the election. Just like every other time I’ve helped salvage a struggling campaign, I vanished from the radar of my former client when it came time to hand out the jobs. As in 2015, I struggled to find work while consoling my devastated children over the abruptness of the divorce. I’m still struggling with money: the run up to Christmas included me bursting into hysterical tears at a bank teller’s desk.
I made mistake after mistake in my frantic rebound spree, including sleeping with a woman in her twenties, destroying the writers group I had worked for years to cultivate, and accidentally sleeping with a married man. My poly mess bled over into my relationship with my primary partner, then her poly mess bled over as well. I came within a few days of homelessness after my apartment plans fell through and I fell for a Craigslist scam. After a nasty, scapegoating meltdown, my relationship with my immediate family has settled into a coldly polite ceasefire born of me having the only generational grandkids (so far).
I would not recommend the year I’ve had to my worst enemies, and I have several. It has also been the best year of my life.
This godless year of 2023 has been the year that I took a deep breath, opened my eyes, and faced myself, and my life, as I am. Google “unstable family of origin,” and I will probably fit every symptom on all the lists you see. I’m bad with money, bad at finding and holding down work, bad at emotional commitment, bad at self-regulation and moderation. And because I’d never known emotional security or stability, not even as a child, that was just as good as I thought it got. If it was bad, I deserved it, and if it was good, I didn’t understand it. I lurched from one anesthetic to another: alcohol, weed, internet drama, fan fiction, video games, and a hundred other time sinks and escapes. This year, I saw it all.
But this godless year of 2023 has also been the year that I stayed on my feet instead of crumpling into a ball.
I made hard decisions about money, my social circle, my family, and yes, my dating. After several years of heavy cannabis use, I stopped it completely, and I’m now on medication that’s actually designed for anxiety. I faced that I do have severe anxiety, and the “anxiety” Karen threw up as an excuse for her actions was just that. I faced my mistakes I made with my primary partner, instead of hiding or running away. A couple weeks ago I went on a date with a man I like a lot, and for the first time in several months, I didn’t immediately sleep with him.
In the middle of doing all this, I scrawled on my kitchen whiteboard:
It already IS better.
I didn’t just see my many screw ups; I also saw what I’ve accomplished and built for years. I’m the father I never had and always wanted; I always have been. While struggling desperately with money, I still gave my children the birthdays and Christmas I wanted to give them. When their awful mother abandoned them, I came in to help them. When they wept because of things I had done, I faced it, and told them their feelings were completely justified, and that I would never be angry with them or fault them for it. In 2015 I wept endlessly, convinced I had irreparably harmed my children by leaving a toxic, abusive marriage. In 2023, I know that any fool can be a good parent with a full bank account and refrigerator. It’s when you don’t know where your next rent check will come from, and go hungry so your kids can eat, and face a never-ending train of complications and problems with no solution in sight, that you find out what kind of parent you are.
Four years ago, I made that dumb writers group while scribbling out hundreds of thousands of words of plotless fan fiction. Two years ago, I realized I was doing the equivalent of screaming into a pillow, and started to change. One year ago, I was churning out tens of thousands of words of erotica I was starting to realize was too good for fan fiction. Now I’m getting paid for it (and much gratitude to my paying subscribers reading this). A lot of people aren’t into my words, but those who are, say it’s unlike anything they’ve seen.
Three years ago, I admitted that the feelings for men I’d stamped on my entire life added up to my bisexuality. Two years ago, I was sinking into queer erotica, convinced that my own imagination was the only way I’d ever answer those feelings. One year ago, I was shouting at Karen that I’d given up everything in exchange for nothing. Six months ago, I was sleeping with any man who even responded to my pickup lines on Tinder. Now, I know exactly who I am, what I want, and I’m getting it.
I didn’t stay on my feet this year because of this year. I stayed on my feet because who I am, and what I’ve done, my entire life. I dragged myself into sobriety in the middle of my hellish first marriage, against the strong and violent protests of Piper. I dragged myself into accepting my bisexuality in the middle of my suffocating, narcissistic second marriage, against the strong and eventually violent protests of Karen. I gave my children love, and safety, and support, the entire time. I gave up weed because a week after I did, I started to dream again, and I wanted my goddamned dreams back.
In less than a week, 2023 will be dead, and good riddance. 2024 will be born, and it will be a real son of a bitch to get through.
And I’ll still be doing better than I ever have before.