January 2009 – I chose 5 blog posts and re-wrote it all as one post with some deeper reflection. Much of that month was spent healing, and on major painkillers, so the original posts were “blurry” so to speak.

New Year’s Eve came and went quietly, like it had for years. We stayed home. The boys were asleep. Jason’s daughter was visiting and asleep. Mark was asleep on the couch. When the ball dropped, Jason and I were awake—alone together—welcoming 2009 in a way that felt very intimate. I felt so safe in that moment.

A few days later, I was stuck in bed, drifting in and out of awareness under the haze of pain medication, my broken foot forcing stillness on a life that desperately needed distraction. With nowhere to go and nothing to do, my mind kept circling back over the wreckage of the last few months. Jimmie and Becca were gone. Other friends had lost people they loved. My father had died. My mom’s close friend Walter had died. And I had lost who I believed to be my best friend and lover—not to death, but to irreconcilable differences that cut just as deeply.

Mark was there for the boys. Jason was there for me. Even that, somehow, came with its own complications. Jason nearly got into a car accident that day, putting my car in a ditch, saying that if I’d been with him I would have panicked. The truth was darker than that. I was so deeply depressed that I might have welcomed the chaos. I didn’t want to die—I don’t believe in suicide—but I felt hollowed out by grief. I was terrified of the future. I didn’t want to lose anyone else. I wanted more time. More closeness. More chances to say the things that mattered before it was too late.

The next day, while Jason was gone cashing his check and running errands, I found myself sinking into doubt. I didn’t know if this was what I wanted. I wanted freedom. I wanted space. Jason had stepped into my life quickly, out of necessity, when I asked for help—and suddenly it felt like he was everywhere. He had wanted me for a long time. But did I want this now?

He was good to me—undeniably so—but I wasn’t sure I was ready to be serious with anyone. I was only just beginning to crawl out from under the damage TJ had done to me. I hadn’t given myself time to heal, and I knew it. I felt torn between gratitude and fear, between comfort and the need to stand on my own again.

By January 5th, it was clear that Jason was scared too. He was insecure, worried about losing me, struggling to trust. And I wondered—quietly, honestly—whether we could ever have a normal, trusting relationship. Still, when I looked at him, I could see the truth of who he was: a caring, generous soul carrying wounds from his own past abuse. I knew I couldn’t fix that for him. I also knew I didn’t want to give up easily.

I wanted things to work, even if I didn’t yet know what “working” would look like. I believed that if we could both tend to our old scars—carefully, patiently—there was potential there. Something real. Something meaningful.

At the time, all I knew was that I was standing at the edge of something new while still bleeding from what came before. I was trying to grieve, heal, protect myself, and remain open—all at once. January 2009 felt like survival, uncertainty, and the faintest hint of hope tangled together.