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rsadelleThis was in many ways a worse year than last year. I, like many other people, hit a wall in February, and I literally struggled to get out of bed every morning for several weeks. The second-largest wildfire in California happened near enough to me that we had air quality too bad to be out in for literally two months on top of our horrible summer heat. The unemployment extensions ended, which meant I had to both go back to worrying a little bit about money (Don't worry about me - I'm fine! But not having a current source of income is scary.) and get more serious about the soul-sucking process of job hunting. The pandemic continued. I gave up on doing anything with my life other than reading. I read a lot of very bad romance novels and thrillers and rewatched GBBO constantly because I just did not have the emotional reserves to deal with anything else. Much of this year feels like a blur that I have no memory of. And also this year there were vaccines. I got to hug people again. I rehired my house cleaner and got my teeth cleaned. A boat got stuck in a canal and we could make jokes about it because there wasn't anything for us to do about it. I became a person who listens to podcasts (Maintenance Phase is A+ and I'm currently working my way through The Worst Bestsellers back catalogue). I baked a lot. I can usually come up with a lot longer list of good things even in a bad time, and there are a few more in the categories below, but this year is such a blur I'm having trouble remembering them.
Writing. I posted so little fic that it feels like I didn't do much writing this year. Looking back through my DW posts for the last year, though, I did some pop culture commentary writing, which is good. I did some writing! It's the kind of writing I'm proud of. I also continued my weekly journaling habit. I've never managed to successfully keep a journal before, so I'm very proud of myself for having kept this up for over a year. I've gotten back to the habit of writing at least a little bit, if even just one sentence, every day for the last few months. And I wrote one of my Yuletide things all in a rush one morning at the end of October.
Strengthen connections. I'm so glad I have this on my goals tracking spreadsheet so I can look back at all the ways I connected with people. I got my second vaccine shot at the end of April, so I was able to see people in person (and hug them!) for more than half of this year. Even before that, there are a lot of things on my spreadsheet. My mom and I continued to watch dance and theater things online and talk about them in the first half of the year and we went to a play out of town (in an outdoor theater) during a summer pandemic lull. I got in the habit of texting my brother jokes a couple of times a week. My bff and I exchanged emails constantly. My sister by choice and I talked on the phone once or twice a week, about both deeply serious and very fun things, for much of the year. My book clubs continued to meet on Zoom, letting people who live out of town join us, and my fully vaccinated sci fi book club started having occasional movie afternoons with snacks. I sent postcards to my niece (the sister by choice's daughter) every week or two. I chatted with my parents when I went over to hang out at their house every other week while my house was being cleaned. A friend and I returned to having occasional bad movie evenings. There was a little segment of the pandemic easing when my yoga class went back to in-person before returning to Zoom. I had take-out lunches to catch up with one of my best friends when he was in town. I took two (Zoom) classes with other people in my religious congregation. My dad and I had some good email exchanges. My family continues to have lunches together - in-person since we've all been fully vaccinated - every few weeks.
Connect to God/the divine. I have mostly done this on a weekly basis. I found a congregation whose Friday night services I enjoy that I've been watching on weeks when our congregation doesn't have Friday night services so I get to go to my favorite service every week. I've continued on with my Shabbat practice of staying away from the internet for at least the morning on Saturdays, and away from news sites and Facebook all day. I've (virtually) attended Saturday morning services when our congregation has them, and been extra delighted that they started up doing occasional chanting minyan services (where instead of the traditional service, we do a series of chants that reflect the essence of the service). I've been to most of the congregation's holiday services. I found doing the full experience of Yom Kippur (fasting and all) to be really meaningful this year. I also took an adult education class offered by our cantor and signed up for another class with our other spiritual leader that's still in progress.
Be more weird. Mostly on my spreadsheet, this is occasional Facebook posts and some tweets. I also shaved my head, which I guess is kind of weird. For my holiday cards, I did crayon drawings of birds just because. It's hard to exercise weirdness when I'm just at home alone doing the same things every single day.
Feel my feelings. My check-in spreadsheet has a lot of "eh" and "oof" in my weekly check-ins for this one. It also has some successes. Sometimes I did okay with feeling how I feel in the moment. I had a couple of experiences of reminding myself of good things that help and recognizing what was actually going on with my feelings. I also borrowed a practice from an interview I heard last year of "contact points" - when I notice myself feeling really anxious, I bring my attention to the places my body is touching the floor or chair - and it helped when I remembered to do it.
Writing. I posted so little fic that it feels like I didn't do much writing this year. Looking back through my DW posts for the last year, though, I did some pop culture commentary writing, which is good. I did some writing! It's the kind of writing I'm proud of. I also continued my weekly journaling habit. I've never managed to successfully keep a journal before, so I'm very proud of myself for having kept this up for over a year. I've gotten back to the habit of writing at least a little bit, if even just one sentence, every day for the last few months. And I wrote one of my Yuletide things all in a rush one morning at the end of October.
Strengthen connections. I'm so glad I have this on my goals tracking spreadsheet so I can look back at all the ways I connected with people. I got my second vaccine shot at the end of April, so I was able to see people in person (and hug them!) for more than half of this year. Even before that, there are a lot of things on my spreadsheet. My mom and I continued to watch dance and theater things online and talk about them in the first half of the year and we went to a play out of town (in an outdoor theater) during a summer pandemic lull. I got in the habit of texting my brother jokes a couple of times a week. My bff and I exchanged emails constantly. My sister by choice and I talked on the phone once or twice a week, about both deeply serious and very fun things, for much of the year. My book clubs continued to meet on Zoom, letting people who live out of town join us, and my fully vaccinated sci fi book club started having occasional movie afternoons with snacks. I sent postcards to my niece (the sister by choice's daughter) every week or two. I chatted with my parents when I went over to hang out at their house every other week while my house was being cleaned. A friend and I returned to having occasional bad movie evenings. There was a little segment of the pandemic easing when my yoga class went back to in-person before returning to Zoom. I had take-out lunches to catch up with one of my best friends when he was in town. I took two (Zoom) classes with other people in my religious congregation. My dad and I had some good email exchanges. My family continues to have lunches together - in-person since we've all been fully vaccinated - every few weeks.
Connect to God/the divine. I have mostly done this on a weekly basis. I found a congregation whose Friday night services I enjoy that I've been watching on weeks when our congregation doesn't have Friday night services so I get to go to my favorite service every week. I've continued on with my Shabbat practice of staying away from the internet for at least the morning on Saturdays, and away from news sites and Facebook all day. I've (virtually) attended Saturday morning services when our congregation has them, and been extra delighted that they started up doing occasional chanting minyan services (where instead of the traditional service, we do a series of chants that reflect the essence of the service). I've been to most of the congregation's holiday services. I found doing the full experience of Yom Kippur (fasting and all) to be really meaningful this year. I also took an adult education class offered by our cantor and signed up for another class with our other spiritual leader that's still in progress.
Be more weird. Mostly on my spreadsheet, this is occasional Facebook posts and some tweets. I also shaved my head, which I guess is kind of weird. For my holiday cards, I did crayon drawings of birds just because. It's hard to exercise weirdness when I'm just at home alone doing the same things every single day.
Feel my feelings. My check-in spreadsheet has a lot of "eh" and "oof" in my weekly check-ins for this one. It also has some successes. Sometimes I did okay with feeling how I feel in the moment. I had a couple of experiences of reminding myself of good things that help and recognizing what was actually going on with my feelings. I also borrowed a practice from an interview I heard last year of "contact points" - when I notice myself feeling really anxious, I bring my attention to the places my body is touching the floor or chair - and it helped when I remembered to do it.