April 26, 2021 was the worst, and best, day of my life. I was about to break up with someone. Actually, closer to a dozen someones.
The previous 15 months had been some of the most bizarre in recent American history, kicking off with a pandemic, lurching into the most pronounced racial unrest in decades, and crescendoing with the January 6, 2021 attempt to overthrow the republic. These events had exerted a force on my state of mind that I couldn’t appreciate until the snows gave way to buds that Spring, and I found myself in a stunning predicament: I’d been hustled.