Ending my Abusive Relationship with 2020.
I am starting this entry five minutes before the final end of this year from our nightmares. It is time to end my relationship with the passive-aggressive, controlling, unpredictable, abusive, and unrelenting year of 2021. It is time to give it a permanent restraining order and this is what I wish to say to it!
Well…2020! I probably helped jinx mankind by embracing you with feverish happiness thinking you would be the best year ever. How could I not be optimistic based on how good you were to me at the beginning in a prolonged Honeymoon phase that is often the warning sign toward eventual abuse. The end of 2019 also was not particularly kind to me or my family. The day after Thanksgiving my maternal grandmother, Brina Colby passed away after a very long illness. She was such a caring and considerate person that it was as though this incredible woman did not want to contaminate this cherished Holiday with her death and held on for one more day. Very shortly after this setback another relative had something sad happen to her, but I am not at liberty to elaborate in public. You came like a dream and breathed enthusiasm in a plethora of ways, shapes, and forms. You were my savior, 2020! I knew things had to get better.
Over the course of my professional career as an autism advocate, not much has worked out for me including many of the projects that I poured my heart and money into so I could sustain a career as an author as well as help others in dire straits. The costs and problems would always rage like wildfire. Instead of cutting my losses, I would put more resources into keeping them alive, which contributed to at least twenty-five thousand dollars in debt. The only project that truly worked out in a fantastical way happened at the start of my romance with you, 2020.
When I contacted a random producer from the Dr. Phil Show about my best friend, David from Arizona I was not expecting anything. It became so easy to get used to being ignored and rejected over the past decade. I did it in a haphazard fashion one idle hour thinking that the worst that could happen was nothing. But what really happened was “something” and then some! My friend, David was able to get some help from Dr. Phil, which saved his life and I was able to appear on national television for 58 glorious seconds. My mother, Janis decided to come at the last minute to experience this adventure, too!
The gifts you showered upon me stopped shortly after meeting David in person, 2020! The faucet was not only turned off but was tied in an iron knot. The problems started as early as Valentine’s Day weekend. On Friday, February 14 I had learned that a child I mentored took his life at the tender age of 17 with his death being self-inflicted. It was a devastating honor to be invited to speak at his funeral a few days later. Later on that doomed Valentine’s Day I also escorted someone I knew to a hospital performing a good deed when she developed an illness that required medical attention. Just one day later I was hit with symptoms of a viral illness (it was NOT COVID-related because I was tested for the antibodies shortly afterwards. That weekend was so terrible that shortly before being hit with the illness I decided to test my luck at a local casino hoping to feel better if a few hands went my way. Then everything went sour and stayed that way for the remainder of my relationship with you, 2020.
You made it impossible to win. You made me an easy target on Facebook, and it became impossible to say anything right. Trying to say the right thing always angered many people. If I said something in support of law officials, I was seen as being insensitive about Black Lives Matter. Mentioning something about how the mandatory homeschooling could have saved the lives of vulnerable students who were being relentlessly bullied caused people to claim I was rooting for the pandemic. Perhaps it is naïve to believe it is possible to please 5,000 people on Facebook who are my friends, but it broke my heart. Even trying to be a better person also faltered in some ways. I had pursued a woman who I was not at all attracted to because of feeling shame about the assumptions in the past that I am shallow. I just wanted the snide comments to stop even if they were not happening now and exorcise the ghosts in my head. She turned out to be a terrible person who even criticized me for getting David Elmore Smith help on Dr. Phil and said, “I would be mortified if someone submitted me for that show.” I asked her, “Would it have made you happy if I did nothing and he died?” It was like arguing with a moron, and I wanted to tell her how useless it is to try to solve problems sometimes because a new problem always seems to be created in its place.
Your horrible year gave me flashbacks about all of the years I had been bullied as a child and made me fantasize about the death of a former high school classmate who targeted me after the first book came out by spreading lies that I was a religious bigot in addition to accusations that I was exploiting autism for profit. Sometimes I remind myself that he is mentally ill and was just targeting me due to being “there.” The isolation you created caused my mind to be polluted by negative thoughts. My emotions were polluted by anger and demons. You were not life. In life there are supposed to be a few breaks here and there. You were a nonstop nightmare!
But sometimes I wonder about the times you actually showed me compassion beyond being able to help David. My sister, Dena revealed she is having a baby in March. For the first time in eight years, I was also out of debt and did not have to constantly worry about finances. Working from home all the time definitely has its benefits. Even villainess monsters could have some humanity. This year ended with David Elmore Smith fighting for his life in a hospital room with kidney troubles and sepsis. Just before the end of this shitshow of your reign of terror, he was moved out of the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and is now in his own hospital room. He still has a long way to go, but he is not in dire straits any longer. You threw just one last bone on the way out in a way the door as if to pretend you were not all bad. But these little perks do not change the fact that your romance with me was something I hope will never cross my doorstep again. I am tired of the mind games and the teasing gifts to create false hope. I am ready to give you a permanent restraining order and never allow you to create the cycle of abuse with the occasional Honeymoon periods sprinkled here and there. I no longer have to deal with you and pretend to tolerate your presence. You are history and hopefully nothing like you will ever grace my life again! I am involved with a new partner and her name is 2021. I do not know her that well and it will certainly not be a perfect romance. But it will be better than what you are. That is all that matters…
