Honestly, after the last two crap fest years, I really don’t want to say anything to jinx 2022.
Two years ago, the prospect of 2020 and its clear vision of normalcy with a little travel thrown in, began with a late December 2019 trip to Texas, taking a train from San Antonio to Houston for Christmas at NASA. March 4, 2020, found us on a day trip to San Diego on Amtrak, wondering how worried we should be about a virus we’d heard about lately. Nine days later, we were locked down. The Husband didn’t work for months, while I was lucky enough to work from home. In hindsight, the word for 2020 would be Uncertainty.
Last year at this time, the vaccine was on the horizon and a new president was about to be sworn in. Things were definitely looking up. Had to be better than 2020, right?? I could start thinking about that trip to Europe. Then Bam! The events of January 6 still seem unreal to me, in the same way the Kennedy assassination and 9/11 seem unreal. Inauguration Day brought some light and healing but so many people refusing the vaccine has made this year a slightly less isolated version of last year. Travel? Nah, even before Omicron, I just didn’t feel totally comfortable. And despite paying off our house, I feel like the word of the year for 2021 has to be Meh.
So, here we are, ready for another year in the continuing saga of Not Back to Whatever Normal Means Yet. I have hopes that eventually we’ll be comfortable enough to go to a movie theatre again or a cross country train trip or even a plane. But I don’t want to think that far ahead right now. That’s what I did the last two years and I don’t want to be disappointed again.
I’ve chosen “Productive” as my Word of the Year for 2022. This is something that is totally on me, whether at home or out in the world, as limited as that still feels right now. My part time work schedule starts January 3 and plans are already afoot for writing and further downsizing of all the accumulated stuff of 22 years in one house. I spend far too much time on social media, so Productive also covers reading and exercising and anything else that is not staring at an iPhone screen. And that ongoing list of Things To Do needs to get done!
So, Happy New Year! I hope you all pick a word or make a resolution that’s inspiring and doable. 2022 is here and will be what it may. It’s up to us, in our own little paradises, to rise above the anguish and drama and bestow better words to the year ahead and happier and healthier days for ourselves.
Current Reads and Watches
What I’m reading now (paper): Happily Ever Afters by Elise Bryant
What I’m reading now (Kindle): An Easy Death by Charlaine Harris
What I’m binge watching: The Cleaner and Miranda on Britbox
Photos by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash She really captured my New Year mood!
I'm Writing As Fast As I Can 