My year of stress and degradation

Content warning for frank discussion of suicide or whatever.

In 2022 I got worse.

2019 was a fucking great year for me— I graduated college, got my dream job at my favorite theater in the city, and wrote my first full length play. 2020 was full of regression and malaise, sure, but also rest, self-discovery, and sweet sweet silence. In 2021 I danced with strangers, had great sex, and learned to care for my body and health in a meaningful way. In 2022 all I did was get worse.

Just like the vaguely-true-but-not-really idea that the world and it’s political discourse generally “improves” over time, it is easy to believe that you yourself will also naturally become a better person. Time will sand down your emotional baggage, and labor will sharpen the useful edges of your personality. I entered 2022 with steady jobs and a solid apartment, lacking any sense of current or future growth. I coasted, content, but not really, not at all.

What I’m describing was a quarter life crisis. I tried a lot of new things, like chess tournaments, and rock climbing, and playing Survivor in the woods. I saw a lot of movies by myself. I also was late, constantly, to everything, and tired, and liked myself less all the time. Things got dark. At least in the depths of 2020 quarantine, I was actually powerless to change my circumstances. In 2022, what was stopping me? Where did motivated, sunny Declan go? Why was I waking up and meeting a worse version of myself every day?

I’ve never been institutionalized, but once in high school, a friend called me and narrated to me as she swallowed an entire bottle’s worth of pain medication. This was after two months of me talking her off the ledge via AIM messages every other night or so. I called 911 on another phone and stayed on both lines until help arrived at her door. My friend was out of school for about a week after that, and I didn’t tell anyone that I knew why. When she returned, she said her dad wanted to meet me, and he shook my hand in the parking lot before band practice. I tried to forget it all as soon as possible.

Since then, I’ve thought very little about that incident and that friend until this year, when I was suddenly thinking about it all the time. I’m angry and sad that little Declan was in that position, though I certainly don’t blame my friend and hope she’s well now. Little Declan learned so many bad lessons about sidelining their health and peace for others and quieting their internal strife when there were more important things to be worried about. I lapsed into a lot of those patterns this year. I felt bad— I projected my shit onto people around me— I felt worse— I fucked things up at work and in my friendships— I felt bad again— I stopped thinking I was ever capable of anything better, that this useless person was just who I was, and any period of high achievement in my life had been a fluke.

This continued until I bottomed out one quiet September night, sitting on the floor, staring at the wall, feeling for the first time in several years that I was a danger to myself. The truth of my misery felt like a red pressure mark on my forehead, hot and awkward and obvious. I felt like I didn’t have any control over my life or my participation in it.

The truth is, we are all always capable of completely changing up our lives. I woke up the next morning and decided that I had to do something, immediately, to try and make myself feel different. I couldn’t afford to move, and I couldn’t get a new job overnight even if I wanted to, so I decided I would be sober for a week. Though I drank fairly often and smoked weed quite often, I wouldn’t have described either habit as unhealthy or excessive, at least not compared to every other adult in New York. But it was the one thing available to me that I could change about myself in that instant, and I was willing to try anything.

A week turned into a month, and a month turned into three months, and three months has now turned into near-daily Google searches into “semi-sobriety”. It didn’t solve all my problems, but it did get me back to believing that I had a say in how I showed up in the world. I rearranged my bedroom. I’m back on my workout routine. I’m paying off my credit card debt. I know I will someday enjoy a dirty gin martini again, and I’m considering making the jump over to California sober in the meantime, but I trust that those decisions will come when they feel right. It’s also why I hesitate to actually call myself sober and prefer to describe it as “not drinking right now.” For the time being, I’m more than content with my bitters and soda and CBD joints.

2022 hollowed me out until I folded like a flat cardboard box. To everyone who met me this year, hey! Sorry I was probably kind of weird and insecure. I’ve completely changed everything about myself and am perfect now and will never have flaws or make mistakes ever again, obviously. Happy New Year!

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Recently I took a date to Tasty Hand Pulled Noodles in Chinatown, at 1 Doyers Street. It’s right around the corner from the barbershop where I used to get haircuts with my dad for $10. I got the beef tripe noodle soup and insisted that we share a seaweed salad and scallion pancakes. The pancakes were a touch too thin and shatter-y, but still provided the starchy break I needed from the rich, spicy, wonderful soup. Why is cold seaweed so good? Why is tripe so unappreciated? It’s a fucked up little alien looking thing with a weird texture that shouldn’t be delicious but it is. Go get some noodles here next time you’re in Lower Manhattan.

Lead image: Still Life with Parrots by Paul Gauguin, 1902.