It’s not great when the most significant event of one’s year is a multi-day hospital stay involving a lot of bleeding out of one’s bowels. (Or when you’re writing your year-in-review in late January of the following year.)
I’m just now realizing I didn’t write one of these for 2021. That year did not end well either.
Most of 2022 was routine, or living vicariously through my family’s more significant accomplishments and travel. We took two trips as a family—a quick spring break trip to Dinosaur Valley State Park and a trip to Fayetteville for Penn’s freshman orientation. The former was originally supposed to be a Fayetteville trip as well, for Penn to visit the campus, but he was too sick to go so the rest of us did the easiest last-minute thing we could figure out so that my kids would have some kind of spring break experience this year. He later went to Europe without us for almost a month so I guess it worked out in the end. I went to OKC for a weekend.
Accomplishments all belonged to others—Penn graduated from high school and started college and had a successful first semester at Arkansas. The other children continued to grow and do the things that 11-and-8-year-olds do. Carissa took additionial trips to Fayetteville with Penn. Carissa and Lucy had a girls trip to Galveston.
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A 13-year-old in California (who I have never met IRL, and am keeping anonymous on this blog) who has been learning all things computer science from us wrote his own language this summer.
My bicycling was consistent but slightly less milage total, mostly due to the aforementioned hospital stay and resulting fallout. My longest ride was on December 31st, at 75 miles. I bought a new bike in the spring, nicer than any bike I’ve ever owned, but spent the entire year trying to get it dialed in, finally getting it there by year’s end. I did have many adventures around Dallas on my bike, and many good conversations.
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Friendships grew. A highlight was organizing a birthday bicycle taco tour for a friend. I became more involved in my church.
I barely wrote. I barely played an instrument. I think I attended one show. I think Carissa and I went on two dates including that show and dinner for our wedding anniversary.
I worked a lot. I felt more appreciated and fairly accomplished in that area. I wrote more code than I have in years, which is nice. Despite having led Ruby shops for a decade now, I’m a better Rubyist than ever.
I felt continuously drowned in the piles of administriva this life requires. I never did get a budget together. The metadata on that todo item got reset but it has to be at least two years old. We survive nonetheless. Every Saturday starts with a todo list for that day and every weekend ends with about half of them completed, and even then it tends to be the absolutely necessary ones, exciting stuff like laundry.
A heart that’s full up like a landfill
Towards the end of 2022 my depression, which I’ve been battling but treating with some success for over a decade, started to get worse. We’re working on it. My back has also continuously deteriorated throughout the year, resulting in various pains (my shoulders are in pain as I type this), mostly due to sitting in a car or at a desk much more, and a weakening core. On top of the mental health professionals I’ve employed for years, in 2022 I added a chiropractor, another therapist, a nutritionist, and for a while a physical therapist. I’m getting old in tangible ways.
I’ve now been married for 12 years; sober for 7. I expected these conditions to solidify over time, but both feel as tenuous as ever. They both require constant maintenance.
Most days I just want something to be easy, but it so rarely is. Every day I want something to provide some epiphany, but answers disappear further into the distance.
Can you believe that song came out in 1997?
2023
So far I’ve struggled to come up with any new goals for 2023 that aren’t carry-over. (Life as a sprint backlog?) But they vaguely look like: travel more, accomplish one major something on the bike, accomplish one major something in a creative endeavour, go on more dates, stay sober.