A few years ago I started a practice of declaring a name for the year ahead. I have never really liked making new year resolutions, but I have enjoyed having a bit of a guiding principle based on my aspirations for the year ahead.
I guess it started with The Stockholm Challenge
The Year of the Trouser (2015)
The Year of Doing It Properly (2017)
The Year of Just Because (2018)
The Year of Breaking the Habit (2019)
I had been journalling every day and blogging fairly regularly for 15 years but took a hiatus in about 2019 when it wasn't working for me anymore. I'm not sure if I can return to writing everyday yet, it used to be a form of doodling with words and even now I am struggling with this kind of activity, even though its absence leaves me feeling like I'm floating in an ocean.
I know I 've missed a couple of recap years, but hopefully this post goes some way to redress that.
2019
The Year of Breaking the Habit
I was 30 and really ran full steam through this year. I finally felt like I was doing something tangible at work, I also screwed up something so badly it completely changed the way I work to this day. I got outed as a seamstress to my colleagues after ~18 months of keeping it a secret.
The guiding principle for the year was to manage the hobbies I was liable to get sucked into in order to free up energy to try something new.
I took courses in millinery and Japanese. I took classes in bead embroidery and tutu making (I made a professional quality tutu! It might be the best damn thing I've ever made and I never showed you!).
I stepped back from tap dancing because I had pushed it as far as I could. I was still dancing a lot in other ways and really pleased with how I performed when we were out. I got elected practice leader for the molly group and promised I would do my best to do the right thing for the team. I made progress on the steep learning curve to do so.
I finally passed my driving test. We unexpectedly bought a car. We unexpectedly bought a house. We hosted my family's Japanese delegation in London and then we went to Japan late in the year. B lost both grandparents.
We cancelled our Xmas plans in favour of a quiet one at home. And I made my first Christmas roast lamb. I'm sure I levelled up my baking and cookery game but I can't tell you at all anything about what what I made or ate.
Partway through the year I made a remark there were literally not enough hours in the day. My cup ranneth over and I felt like something needed to give.
2020
The Year of the House
I don't think I ever officially named 2020 but with hindsight it was clearly The Year of the House.
We started the year prepping for a renovation and finding builders who would take on the job. I got sick and it took weeks to recover because instead of resting I spent days in the loft shovelling out old insulation by hand. Doing that task was one of the most claustrophobic experiences of my life. I was masked up and goggled up directly underneath a roof in howling stormy weather. But I did it.
We got work from home orders and then there was lockdown. I panic bought butter, cream cheese and a shower. The builders panic bought all the plaster in the local area and stashed it in our gutted house. Somehow they finished the house and we kept going. We moved in. We filled the loft with new insulation in the autumn and it felt like a finishing milestone.
Besides finishing the house and moving us in, I couldn't handle complicated projects and my concentration was ruined, so repetitive simple steps were the defining features of my projects. Hence the felt baskets, face coverings and scrap bunting.
With no dance in the foreseeable future I started circuits class and personal training (PT).
I discovered succulents can get sunburn.
I did a lot of great cooking. I made my second Christmas Day lamb.
I think I finally came to understand the phenomenon of 'struggling to switch off'.
2021
The Year That Wasn't Even Though They Promised It Would Be The Year That Was.
Most of the year featured baseless promises, cancelled plans and stalled restarts.
I find it easy to forget that this time last year we were still in the early days of the vaccine rollout. The pace at which that scheme progressed nationally was astounding. I got all 3 jabs between June and September.
Christmas plans got cancelled for a third year. I made my third Christmas lamb. It's practically a tradition now.
B's sibling got married on a beautiful day in Edinburgh. I made some jumpsuits and a hat for the occasion.
After doomscrolling one particularly awful Twitter dogpile and losing a full night's sleep to someone else's problem, I decided to go cold turkey on Twitter.
I had high hopes for gardening and started out in Feb with great plans. But as the year progressed there was a steady flow of disappointments and failures. The rose was a singular pleasant surprise and bloomed beautifully.
I binge watched a lot of olympics.
It was a turbulent year for my family, as my grandparents' wellbeing deteriorated dramatically. I found myself stepping up to the plate on care responsibilities to allow my father and stepmother some peace of mind to go to America to visit her family. I altered my grandfather's clothes so they would fit his shrinking body. My uncle finally emigrated to Australia after many years of trying. We continued to miss our Japanese delegation.
I finally got to see some friends in the flesh again. Some dear friends had a baby and I was so excited to add the new little'un to the Christmas Gift list. I still haven't managed to sew anything for her.
I upped my cooking game again and finally got the yeast bug. No, not that kind of yeast bug. Some good bread came out of our kitchen I can tell you. I am a damn good cook and I take so much emotion from the food I produce.
I worked so many extra hours. I worked so much. In 2020 my hobbies were robbed of me, and with little sign of them resuming meaningfully in 2021 what else was there left to do in the evenings except carry on for a bit more work. I have developed a reputation as someone to drop into the middle of a crisis if you want the ship steadied and the mess sorted out. I never planned it that way - it has wrecked my work life balance over the last year.
I was pressured into holding a return to practice and in-person AGM for the molly dance group. A group of people were keen to start practicing again but with everything else going on I wasn't - the only advantage of holding the AGM in my eyes was to formally step down as practice lead. The rest of the organising committee went MIA and I was left trying to do the job of 3 people. Almost everything imaginable went wrong in the run up to this weekend - it was so cursed. The people who showed up were as supportive as they could be (and I think they had a nice time).
Every individual, who was absent had reasonable and legitimate individual reasons for doing so. But some of them were behind the pressure to hold the AGM and collectively their absence was deafening. I feel like I had been hung out to dry. So I stepped down having spent 2 years as Practice Lead having not done a bloody thing. The cruellest part of my brain tells me that not keeping the whole thing running during the pandemic is a personal failure. A different part of my brain reminds me that for a large portion of that time it was illegal to do so.
I don't know if I will ever go back.
I don't feel like I achieved anything in 2021, and yet I am still burnt out. This was prime time for personal growth but I haven't banked or reflected or developed or studied or researched any of the challenging situations or tests of my skills and character. The whole year felt like it was on someone else's rhythm, someone else's agenda. I just floated along trying to keep my head above water.
I did have one major goal and subsequent love affair during 2021. I decided I needed to learn how to cycle commute and spent several months taking lessons, practicing and researching in order to have the confidence needed to get out on the roads responsibly. Crucially I knew I needed to do everything in my power to avoid it being miserable - and an interest in ebikes developed. I spent a few moths testing options via the Peddle My Wheels scheme and fell in love with a gorgeous red german ebike in September. It is my pride and joy. I have done nearly 400 miles to date. Before this I hadn't touched a bike in 15+ years and never had a particularly good experience on two wheels as a child. So this whole endeavour feels like a massive achievement.
2022
I've had an idea about what to name 2022, but it has been difficult to find the right descriptors. Initially I had thought of the word "compromise" and then "pragmatism". Then "making it work".
When I was initially drafting this in Dec 21/Jan22, I had been reading articles that say the winter months were a good time for reflection and optimism. Then I realised there was no optimism in any of these words, and maybe that was telling me something important.
2022 is about (metaphorical) navigation and keeping my own (metaphorical) ship afloat and trying to guide it as best as possible until it gets back to its (metaphorical) harbour. Until I feel more like me again.
You could say this is me already. This is me all over. You could say this is my best version of me because I consistently show up and I consistently put one foot in front of the other. But I don't feel like me.
The (metaphorical) harbour is there somewhere but I don't know how many more days at (metaphorical) sea are ahead before I get there.
So 2022 is The Year of Finding a Way Through.
What does this mean practically?
- I've started a different type of journalling to see if I can capture what I'm excited about and what's going on.
- I've recalibrated personal finances am going to track progress until I understand what my money is actually for
- I'm going to try again with my plants
- I'm going to try to regain control over my time and energy. I'm going to try to restore helpful balances and take opportunities to recharge
- When I can, I will try to make experiences or do stuff that is additive (e.g. learning and study). I feel a need to do this, but I don't have capacity to just jump in and do something whenever.
I know we're already mid-March and 2022 is already a bit of a dumpster fire. But that's a different blog for a different day.
K x
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