NYE
New Year’s Eve 2009:
Mapleton, UT
I left Brian in Logan and took the girls down to visit my parents for the new year. I felt bad and I felt relieved. I needed a break from him. We didn’t have money for food. He spiraled and never climbed out.
Mapleton, UT
I went to Utah with my girls and left Jacob in Miami. He could have come but made up an excuse about studying and visiting his dad instead. Always talked about visiting his dad—alone— when I talked about a family visit. New Year’s Eve consisted of me, my parents and Stephen and laurel. There might have been some others that left earlier. I took no pictures. The new year rang in and felt so alone and empty. Did Jacob even care?
New Years Eve 2015:
Vancouver, WA
Pregnant with Lucy, unable to work, Jacob had just failed the most important test that would allow him into residency, I decided to wait out the remainder of the pregnancy at my parent’s new house. This move was one of the most humiliating experiences of my life and combined with the difficult, sometimes excruciating pregnancy issues I was having, I sunk into a depression much darker and more serious than I can adequately describe. Leah and Hannah were in Utah for the week with Brian and once again I approached the new year alone with my parents (looking back, the majority of New Year’s Eves in my life were spent with my parents). Dad wanted to take pictures and I was itching for the beach so we drove to Long Beach on the Washington side. I could barely eat. I didn’t have money to pay for my food. I feel, even today, how shriveled and black I felt inside. A hollowed out space that used to laugh at nothing. I could barely make conversation and the only thoughts I had were telling myself to NOT beg my parents to take me home. Stick it out, don’t go home. You won’t survive the night. Stay with these people. They’re trying to help you. We didn’t openly discuss how horrifically, dangerously depressed I was. We wanted to watch the sun set on the ocean, a symbol of saying goodbye to a tremendously difficult year. Mom and I stayed in the truck and watched my dad play around with camera settings. Where are those pictures? I would pay anything to have them right now. I treasure this sacred day.
New Year’s Eve 2016:
Brooklyn, NY
He’d been having an affair by now for months but I wouldn’t find out for another nine. Me and the girls and baby Lucy went to the church for games and pizza with friends. He called from New Jersey (?) and wanted me to leave the party, go home to pick up a beaded seat cover and drive it out to whoever he was doing an Uber run. With all three kids on New Year’s Eve. Because I shouldn’t be having fun at a party when he had to work to support a family he shouldn’t be supporting. Who was this asshole? I said no, I’m staying at the party and not driving everyone around. It was an ugly interaction that left me shaking. I went back to the party and thought, No one else is being bullied into unreasonable requests. No one else is being shamed and manipulated. They are playing games and they’ll go home tonight. He never came home. I watched the ball drop with the girls from the couch and wondered if I dare ask when he’d be back. It was so peaceful without him. His car was broken into that night and the girls ice skates were stolen. Brand new. That he never replaced. We didn’t have money for food.
New Year’s Eve 2017:
Manhattan, NY
I was living in salt lake but in New York for court and visitation. I abruptly left the Kelley’s house after their heater broke and Cameron (father) hit his oldest son. I checked into a hotel in Chelsea, a few blocks from Times Square and a few blocks from Kleinfeld Bridal. The doctors at NYU diagnosed me with super flu pneumonia. My temperature was 104 and the outside temperature was below zero. I didn’t have enough money for food. Lucy was with her dad, who had just filed for custody and flung us into the most unnecessary, terrifying court experience I hope I’ll ever have. She was largely being watched by ‘paramour’, the attorneys name for his girlfriend. I listened to Mariah Carey sing. I watched fireworks and heard the whole thing while more parts of my soul died from stress and grief. One year without my dad. My favorite person. One month of lies in court. One week without baby Lucy. I would get pneumonia five more times over the next eighteen months.
New Year’s Day 2018/2019:
Brooklyn, NY
I came back from taking Lucy and Hannah ice skating. Leah had cleaned the whole apartment without being asked, an inspiring move considering what was ahead. We had settled into Brooklyn life again but the raw grief and trauma of court appearances, another cross country move, losing my mom and my new job had put all of us in survival mode. A few hours after, child protective services knocked on the door. The needed to investigate and urgent call of medical neglect for Lucy’s club foot that I refused to seek help for. It took maybe five seconds for the lady to realize that the call was bogus but that didn’t stop them from opening a full investigation. Come into the house, look in every room, open the fridge, inspect smoke detectors, make my teenage girls lift up their shirts to check for bruises, call my ex husband in Utah, call my current employer and everyone else they can think of to humiliate and upend our lives again. They came three more times and performed the same routine. He called them to my house for one sole reason— to harass and punish me. I had just found out that he signed an early intervention agreement and plan for Lucy that I knew nothing about. He was in direct violation of the custody plan that he already signed and knew he was in hot water, so better make me pay for it. Turn the table and try to expose me for being a neglectful, lazy parent to justify his early intervention bs. The fear that I saw in my girl’s faces will not leave my mind, their terrified looks of Are we going to be put in foster care? The courts believe him so anything can happen. Will this be the thing that finally breaks mom and she’ll leave us?
(Side note- I overheard his attorney, a few weeks later, chewing him out for setting up the EI and refusing to work with him any longer if he kept that up)
New Year’s Eve 2019:
Brooklyn, NY
We tried to find some joy. We ate a lot of food. We played a game once. We watched a lot of Gilmore girls. We got together with church friends for a few hours and ate pizza. I beat the stake president — a district attorney in manhattan— at a game so that’ll tide me over for a minute or two. But a crippling, icy trauma hangover cloud keeps hovering and I can’t move very far or think a rational thought.. Brian sent the girls a text— a screenshot of a Facebook post he made of the 2009 NYE. “So glad Carrie and the girls are back home again.” Why did he say that, mom? Is he trying to make me feel pity? I tried to briefly explain the story— 10 years later and I’m still trying to justify and explain my decisions.
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