It's a Brand New Day...

It’s New Year’s Day 2010…I wake up and feel like I have the worst hangover of my life, which turns out to be kidney stones. I also happened to wake up this day feeling like a completely different person. I’ve never been happier, more comfortable with myself and more able to laugh at life when it clearly isn’t going your way for as long as I can remember. The irony of getting kidney stones on New Year’s Day, a day when resolutions begin, when hopes for a great new year are at their highest, is not at all lost on me. The crazy thing is, this day is the day when my life changed for the better. I made no resolutions, no intention of making this the best year of my life, or the year I be completely happy and dedicated to living and loving every minute of life…but today was the day that all started. I guess the kidney stone, which I later named Stella after hearing my mother compare passing a kidney stone to childbirth, was what set is all in motion. Why am I even telling this story? Why was this day any different than the days or years before? Was I a miserable human being before 2010? No. Was I living up to my potential as a person? Not even close. Let me start from the beginning…

I’ve always been a fairly positive person, happy, confident person. I grew up with the most amazing, loving, supportive family and that has never changed. I met Dave the first day of senior year at Freedom High School. I remember the first words he said to me, how I would catch him checking me out from across the room in English class and how we purposely got out lockers next to each other, like we both knew what was coming. I wouldn’t change a thing about that year, or any other year for that matter. My first love was all the things I ever imagined it would be and so much more. We inevitably went off to college together, moving into the same dorm and making the transition to college together. Even when Dave transferred to college in New Hampshire so he could study air traffic control, things were just perfect between us. I’ll never understand when or how things changed, but it must have been such a gradual change that neither of us noticed, or wanted to notice it was happening. Needless to say, that after five years together, two of which had been long-distance, a lot was changing for us. I had graduated college and was in a state of limbo, living at home, searching for a job, while Dave was still a busy college student with a completely separate life from me. The day Dave told me he wanted to be with other people, it felt like the ground fell from under me. He had always been so open about what he was feeling, good or bad. This was something I loved about him…not having to pull things out of him, being able to talk things out when we had a disagreement. But today, I couldn’t see all that good stuff. I was so angry and hurt.

During this time, I had a really positive outlook on the situation and really wanted to move on (i.e. see what else is out there, meet new people, go on dates, live my life) but wasn’t really making anything happen for myself. I was pretty content going to work, going to the gym, seeing friends or going out with my roommate on occasion and spending the weekends at my parents’ house because I knew it was better than sulking in my room on a Saturday night because I didn’t have a social life.

Like I said before, I was happy enough. I just wasn’t living up to my potential and I really wasn’t trying.