I Hope Next Year Will Be Better Than the Shitshow That Was 2022
It can’t get any worse, can it?
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2022 will go down as one of the worst years of my life. I mean, I had two heart attacks and almost died, then went broke after they wouldn’t let me leave the hospital until I paid the over $13k hospital bill. That happened in May and I have been broke all year paying off the credit cards we used to pay for it.
I ended up having to sell my MacBook and iPhone so I wouldn’t lose my house, along with my bike and monitor. I even started a GoFundMe, which was embarrassing, but people rallied around to help.
Later in the year, we hit another snag and again I sold the laptop that replaced my Mac, and the phone that replaced the iPhone. I now share one laptop with my wife and do my writing on an IPad that I got for free. It’s not a horrible setup, but not as convenient as when I had my own computer.
If that laptop breaks, I don’t know what we would do, as we both have to work. Last night I screwed something up — the cursor disappeared and I thought that was it, but it was easily fixed later with the right key combination by my brother-in-law.
A few months before my heart attacks, I found out I was diabetic, my gout flared up, and my blood pressure was out of control. So in addition to the medications I take for my mental illness, I also had to take one for my blood sugar, one for hypertension, and one for gout. The heart attacks added much more medication that I must take if I want to stay alive.
Just one month after getting out of the hospital, my family ate bad sushi and got food poisoning – the whole family. We learned never to eat raw fish in the Philippines because it is so easy for it to spoil.
A few months later, my father-in-law was hospitalized because his blood pressure got high and a doctor put him on too much medication.
He was very ill.
The year had more in store for us, it seems. Everything that could break, did, especially nearing Christmas when we lost our TV, coffee maker, and humidifier in the same week. The car broke down several times, and we had to buy a new battery. We lost two more phones to age and breakage. It seemed like we couldn’t go a week without something going south.
Another bad thing happened that was almost good in one way. We found out from a doctor, who tested our son thoroughly, that he was autistic. It was terrible in a way, but good because it confirmed what we had been worried about all along. We weren’t crazy like we thought, at least for thinking there was something very different about our baby boy. He is 3 1/2 now and thriving, but it was difficult for us to process in the beginning.
2022 had it in for my family in the worst ways possible.
We can only hope that 2023 will be better. It is already looking up because we figured out that the credit cards will be paid off in May. We will have an extra $1000 a month that we can put toward a proper emergency fund, and maybe I can replace my MacBook.
There will be no relief on other fronts though as I still have to be taking a shitload of medication, which is completely out of pocket. We have to replace our TV, and my wife needs a new phone.
On the plus side, I am starting the year with 2 newsletters, a YouTube channel, a coaching client, and all my library of articles and essays I published over the past 4.5 years on Medium. I am not planning on adding any more projects, I want to focus on what I have and make them successful projects, not one more afterthought of many. I tend to try to do too much, and the name of the game for this year is focus.
For now, despite my wife and I both struggling with our mental health, and my son in therapy, we are all in good health, so far. My heart is better than ever after the angioplasty, and the doctor says my stent will last for the rest of my life. My blood sugar and blood pressure are both coming down, and I am eating better than I have ever had in my life.
My marriage and family are solid, and I reconnected with my boys and my parents who live in the USA. I plan to go see them again in 2023 because the month I spent visiting was such a success a\and so worthwhile.
Overall, I have hope for 2023 and for all the years after. This week I committed to myself that I am going to live another 30 years, at least, so I need to get started fixing my many health woes so I can enjoy it.
I am looking at next year as a fresh start.
Are you heading into the new year with the hope that this year will finally be your year? Are you setting goals and making resolutions?
Share with us in the comments.
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