New Year, Same You
It’s a new year! Somehow, it feels more honest to just acknowledge that fact without adding the customary ‘Happy New Year’. So far, ‘happy’ isn’t an adjective I’d associate with the first two weeks of 2022. I’ve spent the weeks since Christmas catching up with people and everyone has a unique story of how Covid messed with their lives, plans and bodies. Everyone’s story is different but they share the same emotional notes: despair, suffering, sometimes anger, often resignation.
I’ve been one of the ‘lucky’ ones in that I remained healthy. My Christmas plans went ahead as I hoped, though that required having sharp implements shoved up by nose by three separate testers in three separate locations each of whom approached my nasal passages as if they were digging for gold. Mercifully, each test was negative and I was permitted to continue with my life as if this were normal. I got a booster vaccine before Christmas, the same day a record 108,000 vaccines were administered. I was quite sick after it but recovered just in time to catch a flight. I had a wonderful time, though the emotional cost of pandemic travel should not be underestimated. I managed to stay healthy because I shrank my world down to the size of a postage stamp. Pre-Christmas, I felt the desperate pangs of loneliness as I stayed home again and again while friends and colleagues gathered. I’m glad I did, but it hurt. (And of course, I have the privilege of being able to do that. Not everyone can make those choices and I know I’m fortunate to be able to.)
Now, the glow of Christmas has faded and we’re in a new year though it doesn’t feel like it. Generally, I enjoy the start of the year. I enjoy the fresh potential January brings as we collectively turn the page and start fresh on clean paper. But 2022 feels different. It feels like 2021 continues to loop around us as we struggle to stay afloat. It’s strange to end a year feeling like we’re right back where we started. So much has happened and yet, so much has stayed, maddeningly, the same.
There was a chapter in my life when I made rigid New Year Resolutions. Each January, I vowed that this year would be different. My goals were the same vaguely embarrassing ones we all share: losing weight, getting fit, being a better person. Obviously, that never worked. Looking back, it seems obvious that the depths of winter was not the moment to change anything about myself or my life. Over time, I’ve learned that what really makes an impact in my life are the daily habits, the tiny changes that accrue over time. It’s slow and incremental but also sustainable. As it happens you barely notice it but in hindsight, it is unmissable.
If you feel like setting some new year intentions, you might like to try:
More/less in 2022
A poem to start the year
This wisdom
Saeed Jones’s determinations
Susannah Conway’s Unravelling workbook
The Surprising Benefits of Relentlessly Auditing Your Life
Your ten year plan
Maggie Smith on resolutions.
The Audre Lorde Questionnaire to oneself
A new way of making goals.
Write a letter to your future self.
Susan Sontag’s 1972 resolution:
Recommendations:
Like many Irish women, I’ve been thinking about Ashling Murphy a lot over the last few days. “There is no change in women’s behaviour women that will end men’s violence against women.” (Have also been thinking about Sarah Everard)
Finished and loved Sally Rooney’s latest book “Beautiful World, Where are you?” (Here’s an excerpt from The New Yorker)
Beautiful photographs of women who let their hair go grey during the pandemic.
Enjoyed these lists of random facts from 2021. Apparently dogs tend to poop aligned north-south.
A Canadian study found that female patients operated on by females had fewer complications.
