I Lost A Year Of My Life
If you don’t have bad days or have never had a negative thought, this blog is not for you.
For everyone else, read on.
Did 2021 Suck For You?
For some of you, 2021 was a banner year; others experienced a standard or typical year; then there are those like me, who had a horrific year. This blog is meant for those people. If your 2021 wasn’t what you’d hoped it would be, I want you to know something… YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
I know those words may fall on deaf ears, but you must trust me; you are not alone at all. Many of us have been or are there right now.
2021: My Dark Year
As the clock struck midnight on January 1, 2021, the hope of a new year was in front of me. My dreams and ambitions for what would be the greatest year ever were ripe for execution, and I was excited for the journey ahead.
Fast forward 12 hours, and I am gasping for breath in my garage while trying to fix a shelf that had fallen. My wife recognized something was wrong. My breathing wasn’t right; I wasn’t right. She urged me to go to urgent care and get rapid tested for COVID-19. I did… and I started 2021 with the virus that took 2020 away from the world.
I was gifted lung and heart issues from COVID-19… issues that lasted many months and required me to see many specialists. The mental fog lingered, breathing issues continued, and the scans of my heart were terrifying.
My family and friends saw the happy me, the goofy me, the confident me, but it was all fake. They saw what I wanted them to see, but all the while I was sinking into a dark place — a hole of despair and worry.
While this was happening, I’d made a business decision that caused us to not only lose market share but impacted our daily sales. This sped up the spiral into my depressive abyss, but no one knew.
You see, that’s the thing about depression. It sneaks up on you, and you learn to adapt to it, to mask it from those around you. I became really good at hiding it to protect everyone around me.
I was out of the office from mid-December until mid-March, when COVID’s grip allowed me to return a few hours at a time to work. The fatigue lingered through the summer and just finally released its grip on me.
During this time, my family paused our plans to move. After all, I was in no condition to take on moving to a new home. Plus, those dark feelings had me scared. What if COVID damaged me enough to kill me? What if I never recovered? The thoughts in my head had already killed me multiple times over.
In August, with COVID in my rearview mirror, we found the property we wanted and eventually moved in. For most, this would be a joyous occasion. But for me… it felt like an anchor around my neck. The move meant my clock was ticking. You see, I was in such a dark space that I couldn’t enjoy the fact that we found our next home. I was worried about what was next.
I knew we had a finite amount of time to get things done because the shoulder surgery I’d put off in 2020 was now scheduled. There was no escaping it. My depression deepened. I was scared, and though surrounded by family and friends, I never felt more alone.
I never shared my thoughts, my fears, my darkness. I hid it from everyone. It felt to me like 2021 was an uphill battle. A year of challenges. I felt defeated.
On September 30, at 7 AM, I was wheeled into the operating room to have my left rotator cuff repaired. When they opened my shoulder, the surgeon discovered I had more than a torn rotator cuff. I had a shredded bicep tendon, a torn labrum, and my clavicle was fused to my collarbone. They fixed it all in one operation.
My doctor told me recovery from this surgery was going to take a while, but thankfully, he didn’t tell me how painful it would be. I’ve had moments of pain that caused me to hyperventilate. In fact, I nearly passed out when my wife tried to take my shirt off to help me shower. Helpless and in pain, unable to do anything for myself, I retreated to the family room where I could see life go on around me, but without me.
I sat in a recliner for weeks. I thought about my year and the pain, and my despair only grew. I hated what life had given me. Meanwhile, not a soul knew what was going on with me. While sitting in my chair at 2 AM, I’d actually thought about what it would take to disappear without a trace. I wanted to simply vanish. The darkness became a blanket that grew heavier by the day, sometimes by the hour.
Nearly three weeks post-op, my wife became violently ill and was admitted to a local hospital. There I was, one-armed, depressed, unable to do simple daily chores, and my wife was lying in a hospital bed for days. The spiral tightened, and my thoughts grew darker.
Fast forward. It is now mid-November, and I am finally back in the office. I realize I’ve been out more than I’ve been in this year. Yes, I’ve lost an entire year. A year I can’t get back. But if I am being honest with myself, I don’t want it back. It was the worst year I’ve ever had. I am so over 2021.
I have started and stopped writing this blog at least a dozen times. I judged myself for writing it, worried what you’d think of it, of me, frozen from fear of judgment.
So, why am I sharing this? Because I know I’m not alone, and neither are you.
2021 has been a dark time for me. It’s hard to share your inner-most fears with the world, to talk openly about depression, but I had to. I realize I am not alone on this journey. There are many others going through their version of 2021.
Just know there’s always the light of 2022.