Hey, friend.
I missed the 2022 Nagappala Book Awards (NBAs) and I don’t have the energy to do it now. You can haunt my Goodreads if you’re really starving for my book opinions.
We can do a quick 2022 rundown though, I guess.
I didn’t travel as much in 2022 as I would’ve liked, for all the obvious reasons: it’s challenging to travel with a 2 year old, everything is wildly expensive, work schedules, and did I mention it’s really fucking challenging to travel with a 2 year old. We did have about 5 days in Boston in the spring for a family wedding, which was fantastic because V also has family in that area, so we both got to see cousins we love. But parenting in a different environment is not actually a vacation.
To scratch that itch as best we could, we continued our tradition of taking “solo weekends” – where one of us goes away for a few days, decompressing and doing whatever the fuck we want, and the other gets 1-on-1 time with Ashwin. If it’s feasible for you, as a parent, I cannot recommend doing this any more strongly. I have tended to stick pretty close to home for my trips, to maximize the relaxation and fun and minimize the tedious travel time, but I might branch out in 2023.
In 2023, V and I will have been married for 10 years and together for 15 (!). For a long time I’ve said I wanted to do a big trip for this anniversary and so we are, in early March, to a very warm and lovely place we’ve never been. Of course, this is only possible because my parents so generously agreed to take Ashwin off our hands for a week. I am honestly not trying to humble brag – I’m just endlessly, endlessly grateful for my mom and dad. I do not take them for granted.
I guess if 2022 had a theme, for me it might well be gratitude. All sorts of not-great things happened this year; I cried, argued, maybe slammed a door or two, rescheduled therapy appointments way too many times, definitely made far too many trips to Starbucks for strawberry acai lemonades, despite buying the ingredients to attempt making it at home (whoops, never did). Loved ones got covid (though thankfully all mostly recovered), the ex-president still isn’t in jail, and Ron Johnson still represents me in the Senate. But nothing truly calamitous happened and for that I can’t be anything but thankful.
I didn’t see my friends often enough, but I’d like to think we made it count when we did.
I’ve loved my new job. The only thing I don’t like about it is it leaves me pretty much no time to write and/or pitch – which I knew would happen, and it’s fine, but I do miss it. I suppose I still have this good ol’ blog that 5 people read, maybe that’s enough of an outlet.
I did some personal healing that was a long, long time coming and I’m now a lot more at peace because of it. Shan’t get into the gory details, but maybe 2023 is the year you confront your trauma? It’s better on the other side, I promise.
Even with the daily grind and stressors that life brings – parenting, household management, marriage, friendships, family, self-care, career – I’ve found myself feeling…pretty good. So much so that I’ve been considering a sloooow taper off of my meds. Longtime friends/readers may remember that I tried this in 2015, as I started trying to conceive, and it did.not.go.well to put it mildly. As scary as that prospect is, I want to try again, because minus that ~6 month experiment, I’ve been on some type of antidepressant/anti-anxiety medication my entire adult life. I think I’m more stable than I was in 2015 and I really want to see if I can do it. If I can’t cope, I can’t cope, and I’ll go back on them without an ounce of shame. I’m mostly including this here because if I do end up tapering, I may track it somewhat here on the blog. Would that actually be interesting to anyone? Unlikely! But that’s not why I write here, really, though I hope it’s at least mildly entertaining for whomever stops by.
What I’m Reading
I just started Screaming on the Inside, one in a new-ish genre of “hey, modern motherhood is kind of a fucking shitshow?” A lot of women are writing about that right now and I’d certainly like to be one of them.
What I’m Watching
After a very, very long period of refusal, I’ve started watching the most recent season of Stranger Things with V. I don’t exactly remember why I tried to boycott; I think at the time it premiered, a school shooting had just happened and I couldn’t deal with violence of any kind. Still don’t love it, but am looking away when I need to. I’d rather be watching Bridgerton, tbh. (Kind of joking kind of not?)
What I’m Looking Forward To
Uh, most definitely our vacation in March. Only 51 days to go!! (I have a countdown app, of course)
What I’m Fuming About
Sconnie Molly 