Fireball, Epiphany and a New Year’s Vow

New Year's Eve celebrates transition, reflection, and renewal. It marks the end of a year and the beginning of a new one, often seen as a fresh start, full of possibilities and potential. It’s a time for setting resolutions, making commitments to change, and envisioning a better future. 

Three years ago, I was on the brink of divorce and spending New Year’s Eve without my son. The only people willing to spend New Year's Eve with me are my parents, mainly because I'm too pissed off at the world to be good company at a party—even I do not want to spend time with myself. Ever since Rowan’s birth, I’ve come to rely upon alcohol—often to excess—to numb the chronic pain that consumes my body, and the pain within my soul that craves authentic connection. In these past six months since the separation, alcohol has been my one consistent companion, yet I’m the loneliest I’ve ever been. 

I've hit what most would consider rock bottom more times than I care to admit, but even those low points weren’t enough to make me choose sobriety. The impact of my destructive behavior, including the dissolution of my marriage and close friendships, did not motivate me to get sober.  Rather, on this New Year’s Eve, as I’m taking swigs of fireball whiskey hidden in my socks tucked away in my suitcase, I suddenly pause and say out loud— “I don’t like myself; “If I don’t like myself, how am I going to love myself?  And if I don’t love myself, how am I ever going to attract someone who will genuinely love me?” Struck by this epiphany, I assert to myself, “enough is enough.”  

I chose sobriety in a solitary moment of deep self-connection. Two years later, that decision transformed my life in profound ways. I went from one extreme—unaware of my pregnancy until seven months in—to the other, becoming so attuned to my body, mind, and soul that I realized I was pregnant just two weeks along. Despite being only three months into my relationship with Robert, his impact is more transformational than four years of marriage to my ex-husband. On that pivotal New Year’s Eve one year ago, he looks me in the eyes and says, “You’re not broken.” Those three simple words of kindness shattered the lies I had carried since childhood, paving the way for a life filled with creativity, joy, and gratitude.

With memories of my commitment to sobriety and belief in my true worth etched into my soul, I couldn’t imagine a more meaningful date to make a new resolution—the commitment to spend the rest of my life as Robert’s wife. On this New Year’s Eve, we drove from our home in Bon Air to elope at the Tides Inn, exchanging vows under the setting sun on the Chesapeake Bay. Three years ago, I ended the year in pain, numbing myself with the burn of poison slipping down my throat. Tonight, our first kiss as husband and wife ignites a fire within my spirit—one fueled by mutual respect, forgiveness, and our shared allegiance to kindness.