A start is enough for now
Her: What are you thinking about?
Me: (sighing) 2015 into 2016 – ten years ago.
Another year’s passed.
When I was a kid, the new year was always filled with so much excitement and hope.
These days, it’s a lot less of that.
It’s pretty wild that it’s 2026.
I remember in 1999 how crazy it was that we were turning to a new century and millennium.
Over a quarter-of-a-century later, that seems like a distant memory.
In 2015, I had a pregnant wife I adored without end, both parents, a smoking hot career, and was in peak health.
And then, in a snap, it all turned to shit.
But I couldn’t even mourn all that I lost because I was suddenly legally, morally, and ethically responsible for another – tiny, helpless – human being for the first time in my life.
What happened the next few years was a lotta madness and haze that I’m still working through now.
On that New Year’s Eve between 2015 and 2016, I sat alone with my dying wife on the top floor of a hospital on the East River and had this exact view in the lounge area.
I remember how beautiful it all looked and, while terrified, still felt hopeful.
2016 into 2017, I felt a lot less hopeful.
In 2017, when I thought my life couldn’t get worse, it got so much worse.
And here I am in the start of 2026 with my son, who’s now old enough to be really interact with me, and Sara, who has been nothing but a gift since the moment I met her.
I struggle still with all of the darkness both in and surrounding me.
But I feel a bit more hopeful, now that I have the two of them as companions.
It’s not much, but it’s a start. And a start is enough for now.
Me: Happy new year!
Him: Happy new year, papa!
Location: an Indian restaurant, trying to warm up
Mood: hopeful(ish) and freezing
Music: Gotta find my way (Spotify)
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