Eat, sleep, drink, repeat....STOP. 365 days later......
I cracked my eyes open "whew, he's laying next to me, that means last night wasn't as bad as I thought". My pounding head and cotton mouth were the only two visible signs of last nights New Year's Eve debauchery. The guy I was dating, his best friend, and I had flown to Los Angeles, California to ring in the new year at the top of the W hotel. We bought a table, we went to a fancy dinner with a celebrity chef beforehand. We were dressed impeccably. We took photos, we got a lot of "likes". The outline of the night was perfect. The stage was set.
The countdown began. Suddenly I thought "will he kiss me at midnight or wont he? Will he or won't he?". 10.....9....8...."will he or won't he?!".....7.....6....5...."ok this is it...".....4....3.....2....."moment of truth"....1.....He looked at his best friend "HAPPY NEW YEAR!". Then he looked at me. I'm sure my face delivered exactly what I was feeling. He kissed me. But it was too late. That 2 second delay....That instant he looked at him and not me, that was that New Year's Eve's defining moment. I ran straight to the bar. I took 2 shots of vodka. What happened next I'm really not sure.....I was informed I ran off, we left, I yelled on the street, a cop came up, I yelled more, he wanted to arrest the guy I was dating, I tried to run across Sunset blvd. Basically the worst version of myself was on display - and publicly. We all went back to the house we were renting, I yelled more and cried more than that. I wanted to leave, wander out into the night. I wasn't suicidal by any means, but if someone had thrown me into the deep end of a pool I can't say I would have fought too hard to stay afloat. I eventually came back inside....I eventually went to bed.
"So you slept in here last night?!?", "No, I slept on the couch. I came in here this morning because I got uncomfortable". "OH". Fuck. It was as bad as I thought. It was as awful as I felt. He left to go spend the morning with his sister. I sat in that bed for hours. I ran every scenario I could think of to try and justify my actions, to try and justify my life. I needed him back on my side, I needed him to believe I totally had it together. When he got back I met him at the car (his friend stayed behind) and I navigated us to Malibu. I wondered at what moment I could bust in with "ok I've got it, this is my new plan!". I waited until we arrived at our destination and just before getting out of the car I turned to him and said "I just want to live by the water and rent a room somewhere and work at Lululemon". He just stared at me. I rattled off a lot more words, I rattled off many more ideas. He eventually said "let's get out and walk around".
Afterwards we went to a bar. I had mentioned us getting matching tattoos, a serious in jest comment. We spent the time sketching it out. I figured he'd back out, but no, the following day the three of us went and we all got it together. It is a flame - the significance combines two songs we love and I added "like a phoenix rises from the ashes, there is always a chance at a second chance". I don't even know why. It just came to me in that moment. I felt that event would bond us, prove I was moving forward, be a new start for us. It wasn't. Instead that tattoo would be something I would spend the next 12 months looking at, reminding myself of the moment in time when I finally stopped falling and finally hit the bottom. It would be a symbol for the hope I had and the fear I was confronting.
When I got back to Dallas I met a girlfriend for drinks before my flight. I instantly started crying. She looked at me and said "I can't wait for the day when you're no longer crying when I see you". I would then miss my flight. Rock bottom.
When I got back to Ohio I got out my laptop. I made a tab of all the debt I owed, the interest rates, the amount of time it would take me to pay it off. But then I made another tab. A tab where I had to write down one good thing I did for myself everyday. I wanted to make sure at the end of one year I couldn't just write off the past 12 months as a failure, I needed to see the value I added to my life - however small. Some days I simply wrote "relaxed", other days I got to write "went to a 2 hour yoga workshop". I remember wondering if I'd stick with it. I remember after a week thinking "this is pointless". But I kept doing it...day after day...week after week....month after month.
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That was exactly 365 days ago. 365 days ago I created my "new life plan". I took it one day at a time. Not all days were good days. But slowly, very slowly, the good started to outweigh the bad. I started to look forward to documenting the beneficial things I was doing. I would write in when people were visiting, knowing those days would be happy ones. Eventually the goals got bigger and the debt got smaller.
Ironic that the year I chose to make sure I could look back and see the value in my year, is the year where it's easy to see it. I can easily spot the value added things I achieved, but I'm not sure I would have been able to tackle the BIG goal if I hadn't started small. "Seeing a movie" is a lot easier to accomplish than "quit my job and move across the country". Small steps. Not even noticeable to another person, barely noticeable to me. But over time they helped point me in the right direction. Over time they helped the tears turn to smiles. Over time it made me swim like hell in the deep end of that pool.
I repaired friendships and relationships (and my credit score) until the only thing left to work on was me. It's been said it takes 30 days to change a habit, which I think is true, if the habit is small. To change a lifestyle, to change a life, it took 365 days - at least for me.
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"I want to live by the water and rent a room somewhere and work at Lululemon". That is exactly what I now do.
Seeing a movie, relaxing, reading a book, quitting my job, moving. Not all changes are big ones, but all had an impact on my life. All were impetuses to making me better.
I've been asked if I will keep writing one good thing each day. I will not. I got what I needed from that exercise, but that doesn't mean I'm still not working on myself, still trying to ensure I add value to my own life. I bought a book titled "1 page at a time: A daily creative companion". The back of the book states "each of the 365 prompts in this book will encourage you to draw, write, list, reflect, and share." One of the pages says "treat yourself to a movie" and the following page requests the movie stub be taped in. Some ask me to draw, to write, to call someone. Creativity and accountability. I'm excited for this new year long exercise (I'll let everyone know how it turns out next Jan 3).
"Like a phoenix rises from the ashes there is always a chance at a second chance".
365 days. 12 months. 1 year. That's how long it took my to change my life.