As another year comes to a close, the "year in review" posts will flood social media and make the rounds of the news. If I can impart anything on top of what will be written is that, as you toast to 2023 just toast to the here and now because tomorrow, no matter how much you want, can't be predicted or guaranteed. This is the first full year without my mother and Christmas this time around has been particularly poignant. Maybe because last year, the pain of losing her was too fresh that it all seem surreal. And, oh yes, there was that "surviving a shooting in Mexico incident" that forced me into a leave of absence from work. A job that I held for over 14.5 years, and where only one person contacted me to see if I were alright and ironically, that same person less than a year later, leading a toxic and hostile workplace incident that resulted in just one more thing to get through.
Since last Christmas, I've gone on Prozac, something I was initially ashamed at having to take, but realized this year, that NOT asking for help and not sharing your story does more harm than good. Once upon a time, I loved my job. Seeing the studio gates open, and driving onto the lot was one of the greatest thrills of my life. I told my boss at the time that I hoped that feeling would never end. And, my mom was so proud.
"Is this THE NBC," a post office worker asked her one Christmas season as she mailed me a package.
"It most CERTAINLY is," she told him.
Working for the network gave me some of the best memories with my mother. It allowed me to take her on three trips to Europe. Showing her Paris, Rome, Venice, Florence, Pisa and finally London where we had some of the best times of our lives. Relocating to New York as painful as it was for me in the end, allowed me more time with her. More Christmas Days and more weekend trips to exotic locations like Maine! (And, if you had asked her, she was just as happy there with me as she was walking along the River Seine.)
So, when this job came to end this year, it was with a bittersweet recollection of all the memories I'd accumulated there. For, in the end, the company doesn't matter. It was how I looked at the employment that did. What it allowed me to accomplish is what I took from it. Not what it took from me. In the end, the people I worked with tried to break me. They tried to insult me and treat me as if we were all back in high school. Through it all, I held my head high. My mother had been the subject of taunts and insults all her young life and she came out the other side with a life that she never imagined was possible.
Try as I might, I was met with resistance as I tried to make the career work. I came back from my leave of absence with a fresh outlook. I had worked on recovering from losing my mother and realizing that life, as I hid under a pool chair, could be taken from me in a split second despite a gorgeous setting and a blue sky. In all, the last two years, and I won't even mention the COVID isolation, have combined into quite a series of events that have made me look at the years differently.
And, oh yes, the most important? I fell in love. Me. After ALL these years, after my time in San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles and New York and always thinking that it could be possible but why bother looking for it to happen at this point. Perhaps my attitude turned off what could have been before, or maybe, as I'm pretty sure, that it wasn't right until now.
I will always miss my mother. I will always miss our holidays and her laugh and her hugs. I have our memories and she lives in my heart and in everything I do. And, without a doubt, she brought a tiny Texan into my life. So, what will my year in review be this time next year? It makes no sense to predict. What matters is seeing what is in front of you. Holding on tight for the ride and making memories that will last a life time. And, above all, never forget that when the excitement of the gate opening fades, it is beyond time to exit stage left.
