2021? I don’t know her

I don’t really feel like doing the whole New Years song and dance. Everybody says basically the same thing: 2021 was hard, really really hard, but it had some bright spots and here’s hoping for a better 2022. I don’t have anything much more original to say, unfortunately, but yet I’m compelled to say my piece regardless.

We watched Ashwin transition to solid foods, learn to walk, and get actually sick for the first time.

We visited family in Detroit and friends in Lacrosse, and that was it for traveling.

We got vaccinated and boosted, and longed for the day when Ashwin can do the same.

I didn’t get anything published, despite pitching a dozen times, but I did take a great freelancing class with the delightful and brilliant Amber Petty. I applied for a whole bunch of different jobs, and had zero interviews.

I went on probably a hundred stroller walks with Ashwin, which I deeply miss now that a) it’s freezing outside and b) he’s extremely uninterested in being in his stroller at all.

I tracked my food intake off and on and off and on. I lost about 10 pounds, may have gained half of them back since Thanksgiving, and continue to try to stop hating my body.

We bought a house, a whole goddamn house, that we are very slowly moving into.

I grew apart from some formerly very close friends and I’m still kind of grieving and processing that.

I tried to remember myself.

We got tons and tons and tons of takeout, mainly from Tipsy Cow, Tavernakaya, Monsoon Siam, and Bar Corallini. We spent a lot of money on groceries but did not actually cook much. I went to Target about four times a week on average. I drank a lot of strawberry acai lemonades.

We saw a small handful of movies in the theater. I had a Goodreads goal of 25 books, I made it through 20, and I’m perfectly fine with that.

I neglected laundry and the dishes and vacuuming and general tidiness to take depression naps.

I watched so much Phineas and Ferb. I watched so much Bluey, which is actually a delight, in very large part due to the Australian-ness.

I fell out of love with Aaron Rodgers, watched the Bucks and the lady Badgers volleyball team win national championships, and emerged victorious in the final season of the Best Friends Forever fantasy football league.

I witnessed my friends score some beautiful, hard-won victories, from pregnancy to promotions to sobriety.

We took family photos on two different occasions, once the three of us and once with the three of us plus my parents, brother, and SIL.

I haven’t the faintest idea what 2022 holds. Can our current dystopia outdo itself once more and render us speechless at what fresh horrors will come in the new year? I have no doubt. I would like to set goals, but I’ve never been good at that; I so dislike the potential for failure that it’s simply easier to pretend I don’t actually want to achieve anything. Look, more therapy fodder!!