Last Updated on: 15th January 2023, 05:29 pm
As I sit here in the middle of January of 2023, I guess I should try and reflect on 2022. I meant to do this on New Year’s Eve, but I just didn’t manage it. So since it seems I do everything late, here it is.
The funny thing is I don’t know what to say about 2022. It was a year of ups and downs, but isn’t every year? I guess I could say at least this year we had some ups because they were hard to find in the couple of years before. It was a year that urged us to try more things, conferences and travel come to mind, and then made us nervous about trying them. Thanks, COVID. It was a year with a lot of waiting to see if things would fall into place, like Santa and a new guide dog. It was a year that forced me to dust off some old ways of getting around, and forced me to make some quick changes of direction for Tansy’s future. Finally it was a year that reminded us that people’s health isn’t what it seems.
I said I was waiting for things to fall into place. Not everything has. Yes, I have Santa, and that is doing wonderful things. But I still have no idea when I’m getting my next guide dog, which makes planning of life things a barrel of fun. I understand that the school is trying its best with the circumstances under which we’re living, but that doesn’t take away the frustration of planning around a floating target…a target that has been floating for at least a year now. For example, I’m speaking at CSUN. But I’m worried that the school will call me with a class date that conflicts or immediately follows CSUN. But I don’t want to rush them in finding me a dog by asking them how things are progressing because the right dog is what I want to come home with, but I also want to warn them that some dates might be less than awesome! Aaaaaa!
Thankfully, some of those health things I linked to are headed in the right direction, even though there is still some uncertainty in some cases. But at least they aren’t keeping us in crisis mode as much anymore.
Another thing I haven’t mentioned in a while is the progress towards having a new office. It keeps getting later and later. I think maybe we’re planning to move in by March. March of 2020 was when I started working from home. That’s just crazy! But I’m glad I’ve been able to pull it off for so long and haven’t driven Steve around the bend with me being here all the time.
So 2022 is in the bag. What does 2023 look like? Well…interesting, both in the positive way, and in the “may you live in interesting times” sort of way. I have mentioned from time to time that January hates me, and because it brings illness, death and upheaval more times than it doesn’t, I tend to dread it. This January is sticking to the tradition. My dad had to have surgery. Thankfully, he seems to be recovering well, but I don’t think I will truly relax until he gets the news from the doctor that he’s all 100 percent good. On top of that, an older person I know caught COVID. I just found out today.
But on the better side, if I can pull it all off, I might be taking several trips this year. There’s the CSUN trip and another possible work trip in the summer, plus guide dog school if it happens. On top of that, Tansy’s puppy raisers want to see me, and I’m gently trying to convince them to come up here so they can also see Tansy and I can do my best to show them around Ottawa. Plus there’s one other possible trip, but like I said before, it’s hard to plan trips with a floating target in the mix.
We’re also going to a concert! It’s not until April, but we have tickets. It’s the first one we’ve been to since the dawn of Omicron, which is long for us. We don’t recap every concert, but we like to go to a lot of them, so not going for a long time has been weird. Hopefully going to a show won’t feel equally as weird.
We don’t have any real New Year’s resolutions, but one thing we want to do is get back in the habit of going to a restaurant for no reason. We used to do that whenever we decided it would be a good idea, but since it wasn’t a good idea in COVID times, we’ve gotten out of the habit of going. But we really want to do it again because it’s fun, and we have accumulated a total whack-load of restaurant gift cards. Between getting them as gifts and me winning them at work, we have a ton of them. We should definitely use them when the mood strikes.
Another goal, for me personally, is to walk around more so my cane skills don’t suck. They’re passable, but they’re not awesome after a 9-year hiatus. The easiest way to rebuild them would have been to use them going to work and back, but since work is at home, that isn’t a thing. I would have done more walking in my neighbourhood, but there were multi-month-long construction projects that kind of messed that up. Now that they’re done, it’s freaking cold so less appealing. But I’m really hoping to pick that up some more.
My hopes for 2023 aren’t huge. Like last year, I’m hoping for peace and calm and some simple joys. Anything beyond that is gravy. But I’m encouraged that some gravy is possible, since I didn’t ring in the new year crying my eyes out like I did in 2022 because everything seemed to be going backwards. Things aren’t going as forward as some people think they are, but I at least hope we can hang on to what we’ve got. I hope everyone has a better new year.
You haven’t driven me around any bends. No more than usual, anyway. I kid, I kid. Probably.
I don’t think we’ve really managed to annoy each other at all. When we’re not supposed to, we don’t even notice each other. Or if we do, it’s not to the degree where one has to tell the other to cram it. If you’re doing a presentation or I have to do something loud, we just close a door and life goes on. It’s good.
I’m looking forward to that concert. It’s Matt Andersen, in case anyone’s interested. It’ll be the second time we’ve seen him. The first one was fantastic. A big thank you to whomever it was that suggested to Carin that I might like tickets for Christmas.
I’m trying to think of any goals I might have for the new year. Continuing to wake up each day on the right side of the grass and not accidentally knocking the site severely offline before its 20th birthday are about all I’m coming up with at the moment. I’m not sure if that lack of big plans means I’m unambitious or mostly happy and content. I think the answer is yes.