2022 Year In Review

One reason that I really feel drawn to doing “Year in Review” posts (and have ever since I had my little livejournal way back in 2004), and one reason that I miss the way I used to use social media (which I will likely write a whole other post about) is that I feel like I don’t remember my life. Which is a wild thing for me to say, as someone who can often access crystal-clear, multi-sensory memories about specific events and periods in my past. But I do have big gaps in there - like, I had to ask my mom earlier this year how my family celebrated Easter when I was a kid, because I could not recall - and what I find even more disheartening is that I often can’t recall the feel of my life, what the experience of different periods of my life was like as I was in them.

I think this is a feature of my depression, honestly - when I am depressed, it is nearly impossible to remember that there has ever been a part of my life that didn’t feel like that. Even though it’s actually impossible for this to be true, it feels like my life has always been like what it’s like now. Which is a real trip when you intellectually know that’s not the case, but knowing it mentally doesn’t move the emotional needle, like, at all.

(Also, there’s a real possibility that this is just a part of getting older - now I have 40 years of life to try to remember, whereas younger, more-able-to-remember versions of me had smaller chunks of territory to cover. Who knows? Brains are weird.)

So now that I’ve written three entire paragraphs about why this post exists, please enjoy my 2022 Year in Review!

First of all, it feels important to me to say that the year started and ended with me getting really abundant, diverse reminders of all of the people in the world who love me, who support me, who will step up when I make a vulnerable request for help and who will cheer me on when something really cool happens in my life. (Specifically, I’m talking about all of the kind messages I got for my 40th birthday in January, and all of the wonderful messages I got earlier this week when my episode of Jeopardy! aired.) If it hadn’t been such an obvious set of bookends to the year, I might not have noticed it, and it’s really important for me to notice it, because there were so many days in between that I forgot that, that I felt very alone. And that’s the version that’s not true. It’s important for me to remember that.

Other cool things that happened this year include (in vaguely chronological order):

  • Working with my brother on some of his creative projects

  • Starting to tint my brows and wear bright lip colors as an experiment for showing up differently in the world

  • Getting a promotion at work (kind of? There are some elements of working in an architecture firm that are weird when you’re not any kind of architect)

  • Going to a family wedding (which I am insisting on calling it because, even though I am not biologically related to any of the people involved, I have known them all my entire life), and having the wonderful experience of being welcomed and embraced and really having my heart filled by it

  • Setting up weekly phone calls with a friend who I don’t see enough

  • Having a hawk hang out in our yard for a couple of days

  • Spending 10 days living in a house with my three closest friends, which was an unimaginable luxury of mundane time spent together

  • Watching my husband follow through on his plan to set up a community board-game meet-up and seeing how many people out there are on the same page as him in the most encouraging way

  • Celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary (and acknowledging that I have now been dating, engaged to, or married to Peter for fully half my life, which is truly wild, and that fraction will keep getting larger, which is wilder still)

  • Getting to achieve a previously-abandoned childhood dream and flying to California to tape an episode of Jeopardy!, which was such a thoroughly positive experience that I can hardly believe it

  • Going to see Lizzo in concert with two of my best friends, holding hands and dancing and screaming along

  • Starting seeing my personal trainer again and getting to lift weights, which has only just happened but feels very hopeful

That’s an astonishingly long list of positive things in comparison with the big hard things that happened this year: the death of a friend I loved very much, the death of our beloved cat Pixel, and having to be put on blood pressure medication this year, which in comparison to the other two is pretty laughable, given that it’s had a negligible effect on my life overall, but it was such a signal of the tangible effects of the stress of the last several years on my body that I couldn’t help but be unsettled by it.

And there were also some things that were both big bads AND big goods - beginning the construction of a bathroom in our basement is the culmination of a years-long plan and will make our house an even better place to live and welcome people AND ALSO it has caused really significant disruptions and stress, and those will be continuing into the new year. And my father-in-law having what turned out to be a pulmonary embolism on Thanksgiving was terrifying and distressing, AND ALSO thank God they found it when they did and he seems to be on the path to full recovery now. I had two teeth removed, and one dental implant placed (with another coming next year), which was all painful and inconvenient AND ALSO something I’ve been anticipating/dreading almost my entire life, so there’s a lot of relief with knowing that it’s taken care of now.

But I’m likely to remember most of those things, the high points and the low points. I also want to remember that 2022 was the year that I did workouts in virtual reality, and that I participated in a community gratitude experience via my friend’s Good Things spreadsheet, and that I discovered a sudoku app and was comforted and excited by the challenge of it, and that I spent so much time this year cleaning out my office and thinking about what to keep and what to get rid of. Those are all things that were part of the texture of my life, things I did every day (or at least most days), that were part of what 40-Year-Old Sarah (who’s only around for another few weeks) did with her time, with her “one wild and precious life” (credit to Mary Oliver, as always, for everything).

And also, just for funsies:

  • Read 15 books this year that I’d never read before, which is not a ton for me personally but better than most recent years - I went through a real romance novel phase in the early part of the year, which was fun and new for me. Most notable:

    • Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hersey

    • Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey

    • Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (but more so just the experience of reading all three Locked Tomb books back-to-back)

    • Osmo Unknown and the Eightpenny Woods by Catherynne M. Valente (which is kind of cheating, since Cat is my friend, but I honestly did really love this book)

  • Listened to:

    • a lot of what I’ve come to think of as “Dad Rock” - albums from the 70s that my parents listened to a lot when I was a kid: Graceland by Paul Simon, the Eagles greatest hits, Little River Band, The Alan Parsons Project, Herman’s Hermits, The Lovin’ Spoonful

    • Raw Data Feel by Everything Everything, which my brother introduced me to on a summer road trip

    • Special by Lizzo, of course

    • RENAISSANCE by Beyonce, OF COURSE (I still listen to this album at least three times a week)

    • a number of personally built playlists with themes including:

      • Sensitive Rock Songs

      • 80s Forgotten Wonders

      • 90s Lady R&B

      • Disco Inspired (Spring 2022)

      • Ethereal and Powerful (Fall 2022)

    • also a bunch of new podcasts:

      • Best Friends

      • Add To Cart

      • The Deep Dive

        • These three really upped my quotient of “Chaotic Lady Duo” podcasts that I listen to, which was really great for me

      • The Sum of Us

        • HIGHLY recommend this one

      • We Can Do Hard Things

      • Funny `Cause It's True

      • Work Appropriate

      • If Books Could Kill

  • Watched 14 new-to-me movies and 14 new-to-me seasons of television, and honestly there’s so much that I didn’t get around to watching this year that it feels ridiculous. Notable shows/movies:

    • Watch Out for the Big Grrls, which I highly recommend

    • Andor, which blew me away with how good it was

    • Encanto, which emotionally devastated for about a week

  • Made an Hourglass Cowl (knitted), designed and sewed curtains for our round kitchen window, hemmed curtains for Peter’s office in the basement, and knitted an Eastern Market Tote just for fun.