December 31st, 2022
Thunder Only Happens When It’s Raining (2022)
“Oh, thunder only happens when it’s raining / players only love you when they’re playing / say, women, they will come and they will go / when the rain washes you clean, you’ll know / You’ll know”
—Fleetwood Mac (and many remixes), Dreams
“First things first / I’ma say all the words inside my head / I’m fired up and tired of the way that things have been, oh-ooh / the way that things have been, oh-ooh / second thing second / don’t you tell me what you think that I could be / I’m the one at the sail, I’m the master of my sea, oh-ooh / the master of my sea”
—Imagine Dragons, Believer
“I get up, I get down and I’m jumping around / and the rumpus and ruckus are comfortable now / Been a hell of a ride but I’m thinking it’s time to grow / Bang! Bang! Bang! / …I’m way too young to lie here forever / ‘Im way too old to try so whatever come hang (come hang) / let’s go out with a bang”
—AJR, Bang!
“I see it / let’s feel it / while we’re still young and fearless”
—Alan Walker, Darkside
I was right.
But first, a 60-second detour to remind myself and any readers of actuality and bring some humility to this post.
At the end of 2021/beginning of 2022, as often there is, I had some Big New Year Energy and impetus to Get Things Done and Organized (this is also an energy I carry fairly frequently anyway; see: last week at work when no one was working except me and so I made a big list of everything my team and I should get done in 2023, they will hate this act come Tuesday, lol; anyway) and said, In 2022! I Shall Migrate My To-Do App on my iPhone! This will be very easy to accomplish in a year’s time! And so I put it on my “2022 things” list (in, of course, said To-Do app).
(The To-Do app is my lifeblood, kinda, of my day-to-day; I bought it for a whopping [what it felt like at the time, for apps!] $10 back in 2009 and it’s served me well since then. No, I never upgraded, I hate updating apps, hence why I’m now so far behind and have to start all over on an app from a company that still exists.)
Anyway, it’s been 54 seconds, long story short, our heroine ran into many other things to do in life and … just didn’t get this one done.
Until today! We’ll see if I finish, but I finally, randomly, but because it felt right, decided on WHICH app to switch to and bought it (another $10, but feels ‘cheap’ compared to other subscription-y apps today!) and committed and am migrating. So. All the hubris in the world, to finally realizing wow I won’t get this done, to maybe getting it done?
2022. Two little lightning bolts of matching 2s. Lots of rain (but not in real life, see: drought). But overall a feeling: this is right. I was right.
2022 brought together a lot of things I’ve been dreaming of being and in a similar haphazard-yet-planned fashion, happened. I’ve dreamt of being someone who enjoys the moment (ahem, insane to-do app saga nonwithstanding; I’ll never not be a type-A-er, might as well embrace it and enjoy the GTD life); I’ve dreamt of being someone who trusts her intuition and acts upon it more forcefully; I’ve dreamt of being someone aware and compassionate enough, but confident enough to lead, and of someone who feels rather than thinks (so much damn thinking), and leans into that.
There were so many things bringing me angst this year. So much crying, and fury, and despondency. And in the end it turned out I was leaning into the right feelings, and there is just more that needs to be fixed or accepted or changed.
DESPONDENCY: Overall, the year was better than 2021 at large (if not individually/in my sphere, but those aren’t my stories to share!), if only because covid was over. (Blahblah it’s still here, but honestly, don’t care, sorry. It’s Over in the way it was, finally.) Because I recognize my privilege, I kept saying “oh the pandemic isn’t that bad for us”, and it wasn’t; I knew if we got covid we’d be OK, we had means to keep our kids learning and socialized, we had money coming in and money to sit on…but actually, it sucked. I thought I liked working at home every day—turns out I didn’t! I thought I didn’t mind hanging at home, and I don’t! But overall the complications and confusing messages and changing everything and the stupid masking for kids and and and just, no, I can’t, I couldn’t. Here’s what I wanted: regular life, playdates and sleepovers with abandon, Scooter City in a crowded elementary school gym with germs flying everywhere (really!), no more breath-holding about if kids were going to get quarantined, people just living their crowded dirty messy fun lives. Community! I guess I wanted community! And in a few other ways, too, we got it. So, good. I’m sorry this happened and I’m very sorry people died, no shit, but turns out nature makes its own decisions sometimes, and we’re just human bystanders. And I personally? Can only do so much. So let’s live.
Here’s what I was despondent, and furious, and sad about: women’s rights. Women’s rights and how we act like it doesn’t matter, on the whole. People who cheer and celebrate and shout about LGBTQ rights for their corporation, but stay silent as ever as women’s health care is diminished, their rights taken away. Stop pretending it doesn’t matter. Stop pretending it’s about birth. It’s about control. It’s hypocrisy to pretend otherwise. This was an infuriating year, and the acts and reactions of those diminishing women brought me to tears. This isn’t right. This isn’t just. Women deserve better.
Kids deserve better, too. Kids deserve schools that are open, kids deserve to not carry the pandemic on their backs, kids deserve to go to class instead of staying home for three weeks while the adults bicker about a pay raise. I was on no one’s side for that strike, except for the kids’, and as I’ve said, it really messed me up. I felt so much angst and anger and sadness during those three weeks. It did not have to happen that way, and to pretend that there’s One Bad Actor in all of it is false; both sides weren’t doing their best and weren’t being realistic. Kids deserve better. I was glad to take a day to take the kids and their friends to Crayola and find joy in this, I am glad to be coaching basketball (lolololololol) this winter to give some kids some fun, I am glad to help with swim meets for kids to be able to compete and try something new, I am glad to be doing things to help my kids’ schools because kids deserve better, and our time, and our attention. This I always cared about, but came back to in a major way this year.
And not to even get started on the guns! The fucking guns. IT’S THE GUNS, STUPID. Hypocrisy.
Hypocrisy runs rampant in the corporate world, too. Inflation is the culprit? Try looking at your executive salaries. Can’t keep people employed? How about those bonuses you gave out?! It’s disgusting, and infuriating. While thankfully, my workplace is not at all subject to such things (which makes it such a special place to work), there was a few particular struggles that were a result of not-enough-truth-telling. Some dear colleagues who left added insult to injury, too. And the lack of truth-telling—that’s not a way I know how to live, and I called it out, and I was upset, and I felt alone.
But I was right. Turns out, in all of this, it just takes time for others to catch up.
To get to the end of the year and find that so many things, from superficial to big—as I sit in my really-cool reconstructed kitchen, I’m living in one of them!—my gut was on, and the goal of trusting it was there, too. FEEL DON’T THINK. My goal of years past! I’ll stop there but man, it felt good to be vindicated, validated, at the end of all that (this isn’t about the kitchen, btw, just a bunch of stuff).
And that wasn’t even the 2021 goal. MOVE INTO MEANING was that one—nailed it. Realizing that hey, I enjoy working out/being active, let’s do that more; and knowing that I had to start diving into what brought me the most meaning—this concept of building, building, building one’s life reaching a point where then…you can just enjoy it. Embrace it. That’s the meaning I sought, and the meaning I found. Gold star. It doesn’t hurt that I have an incredible family and wonderful husband and kids at majorly fun ages :).
What’d we do this year? A ton! We went to the beach, twice!, we made new friends and hung out with old, we hung out with each other—our fave!, we watched some awesome swimming, we found ourselves with a couple of (basket)ballers, we went to the rollerskating and scootering parties and we got back to normal schooling complete with a bus, we watched a reader and now skater catch on fast, we worked on ourselves and our relationships to those around us, we just…lived and enjoyed. Were grateful for what we had but tried to take it easy on ourselves when things didn’t go as planned. In all this, I am most proud of Jeff.
And not gonna lie, proud of myself (worried that I was humble, fear not; in fact, I may know a young person, who at 4 years old said “I’m a really great person, WIGHT?!” and now older said “I know everything there is to know about skating”, so, the acorn blahblah…). I sensed that I was onto something and in a moment at the end of the year I realized: I was. I was right. I’m doing good things.
And now I just came back to this to add some photos and quotes and what have you after a day of skating and cheese and video games and crabbiness but also fun, and I’m also here to tell you, I finally did that freaking to-do of migrating my to-dos, so I guess you just know when the time is right. Goals for 2023…WONDER/ENJOY, play more, learn to raise my right eyebrow independently (I can already do my left after much training), and maybe finally order some photo books. Also Diana and I are looking into witchcraft.
Here’s to the family, as the family said in our toasts, and here’s to 2023! Happy new year.