![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12The sun has gone down on another year, and I can already see 2023 in photos posted by my friends and family in Australia. It's time for another round of the year-in-review meme.
1. What did you do in 2022 that you'd never done before?
I struggled with this question, because besides visiting a couple of new cities/towns/regions in countries to which I had previously travelled, I don't really feel this was a year of a lot of new experiences. There was a lot of 'more of the same,' and that's one thing I definitely want to change in 2023.
2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
My resolutions for 2022 were, as they have been for several years now, to carve out spaces of safety, kindness, empathy and beauty where I can, to draw my own personal lines in the sand, and hold to them, to support and live and love with integrity, and to remember, always, that love, love is a verb, love is a doing word.
I actually think this year I did this really well.
I had some concrete professional goals relating to teaching, getting published, presenting at conferences, and so on, and these were all achieved.
My resolutions for 2023 are probably a mixture of the above. I want to stick to my 'fire can be a candle flame' resolution that I've made each new year since 2016, and will continue to do my best, no matter what my various countries throw at me. I have resolved every year to make light, and warmth, and kindness in the smallness of my own life, and accept that this is enough. Again, I have a few concrete professional and personal goals, but I prefer to keep those private until the close of the next year.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Several friends from different spheres of my life had babies.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
One of my great aunts — my maternal grandmother's youngest sister. She, like everyone in that generation, had a wonderful self-deprecating sense of humour that revolved around making every personal anecdote (no matter how horrifying, and there was a lot of horror in my grandmother and her siblings' early life) sound like an amusing adventure. This tendency is definitely very much alive in my mother's generation, and my own, and I'm extremely grateful for it — it's a wonderful (and oddly useful) legacy.
5. What countries did you visit?
I went to Germany twice, in April and over Christmas, I went to the Netherlands for a professional conference (and long weekend with Matthias), I went to Italy for two weeks with my mother, and I went to New York in September for a wedding/holiday with Matthias and Mum.
6. What would you like to have in 2023 that you lacked in 2022?
For at least six year now, I've answered this question by saying that I wanted hope for the future, and remarked that while I had experienced completely unearned personal and professional success and happiness, things had got bleaker and bleaker in terms of the state of the world. This year, weirdly enough, the positions have been reversed.
It may seem odd to say that I feel the world at large is heading in the right direction: we've got an ongoing pandemic, we have a full-scale war in Europe (which I personally believe is a world war, we just haven't realised it yet because we expect 'world wars' to look like they did in the twentieth century), we have awful dictators and human rights abuses all around the world, climate change is as dire as ever, the aggrieved far-right remains a global problem, etc etc. And yet I feel that at last people who broadly share my ideological perspective (including those in positions of political authority) have woken up to the scale of the problem and — slowly, incrementally, imperfectly — started taking steps to turn all this around. And so, although I don't think it is easy, and I don't think we'll get there without making mistakes, and arguing with our own allies, and what we're up againsts is in some ways overwhelming, I have the hope I've been lacking in the future of the world, and of humanity, since 2016.
For various reasons, my planned trip to Australia over Christmas this year was unable to go ahead, but I have flights booked for March/April in 2023, so I will echo my wish of last year: this year, I have one other overwhelming wish: to see my family in person, to hug my mother and sister, to be swept up in the chaos and disorganisation of my paternal and stepfamily, to see the sun sparkle on Sydney Harbour, and the sweep of the Australian sky. To swim in all those southern oceans.
7. What date from 2022 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
24th February, the date of the start of the full scale invasion of Ukraine. It's such a demarcation line in my understanding and thinking: it woke me up, and clarified my own sense of purpose.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I don't really feel as if I had one standout achievement — it was more like a bunch of smaller things: professional successes (a lot of journal publications, a very well-received conference presentation), little bits and pieces around the house, maintaining a generally good routine, etc.
9. What was your biggest failure?
I don't really think of it as a failure, but I suffered from several periods of mental darkness, and it sapped my strength and at times destroyed my joy in things that generally make my life feel worthwhile.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I had COVID over the northern hemisphere summer (although I know this isn't the case for everyone, for me it was extremely mild with just one day of heavy cold symptoms), food poisoning in late November, and my usual periodic colds.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
Not one thing, but the various tickets and accommodation and meals and activities for international travel.
12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
Honestly, that of every Ukrainian as they fought an existential battle for survival as individuals, as a nation, and for the right to chart their own political and foreign policy course. They restored something that was broken in me.
Supporters of Ukrainians both on a national/political/diplomatic/military level, and on an individual level, who showed that it is possible to enact foreign policy that is both moral and self-interested. It is my greatest wish that we could see more of this in more parts of the world, becasue it shows what is possible when a people's will to fight for their democracy and human rights is provided with an adequate level of global support.
My fellow Australian voters surprised me by changing our government for the better.
13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
The usual endless list of murderous authoritarian and dictatorial political leaders (for obvious reasons most notably Putin and his regime, but unfortunately violent authoritarianism is a global phenomenon), our travesty of a 'government' in the UK, the far right in various countries, tankies and other geopolitical abuse apologists, and various incopetent and/or predatory men who continue to fail upwards into positions of power.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Mortgage repayments, and just the day to day cost of living. Probably costs associated with international travel as well.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
All my international holidays. Being able to see my mum in person for the first time since 2019.
16. What song will always remind you of 2023?
It's three songs this year:
'Hold Your Colour' — Pendulum
'Let Me Go' - Salt Ashes
'Standing on the Shore' — Empire of the Sun
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Happier about the world, sadder about myself.
ii. thinner or fatter? About the same.
iii. richer or poorer? Slightly poorer. *cries in inflation*
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
I wish I had read more books. I read 87, which is low for me, but I know that I went for weeks at a time doing nothing but scrolling through Twitter, which definitely ate into a lot of time I would previously have spent reading.
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Endless purposeless scrolling through social media.
20. How did you spend Christmas?
I went to Germany with Matthias to visit his family — our first time together in three years at Christmas (and first time in Germany in four; in 2019 they came to us). We stayed with his sister and her husband and kids, who have now moved into Matthias's parents' old house (the parents now live in a small bungalow in another town). On Christmas Eve we did the regular get-together to unwrap presents and eat cold seafood for dinner, and on Christmas Day we went to Matthias's parents' place (my sister-in-law and her family went to visit her husband's family) where I cooked lunch. It was a somewhat exhausting trip, and I feel like I had no time to think, but it was fun to be around children at that time of year and I'm glad we went.
22. Did you fall in love in 2022?
My love for Matthias is that ever-burning candle flame that lights and warms my life.
23. Did your heart break in 2022?
It broke for others, so many times, but not for myself.
24. What was your favourite TV program?
Babylon Berlin's fourth season, by a significant margin. Honourable mention to Andor, Yellowjackets (which began in 2021 but we finished in 2022), and Derry Girls.
25. Where were you when 2022 began?
In Ely.
26. Who were you with?
With Matthias.
27. Where will you be when 2022 ends?
In Ely.
28. Who will you be with when 2022 ends?
Matthias. We'll watch a trio of Rian Johnson films (Glass Onion, Brick, and Knives Out, and graze on cheese and charcuterie.
29. What was the best book you read?
I read 87 books in 2022. Barring rereads, my favourite books were probably Perhaps the Stars (Ada Palmer), The House with the Golden Door (Elodie Harper), and Fierce Appetites (Elizabeth Boyle).
30. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Salt Ashes was a fantastic new-to-me musical discovery. I have Matthias to thank for introducing me to the marvellous Rue Oberkampf.
31. What did you want and get?
A change in government in Australia. For Boris Johnson to no longer be the prime minister of the UK.
32. What did you want and not get?
For Boris Johnson to be replaced by someone less horrific than he is. Obviously I want a Ukrainian victory in the war, but I did not think this was a realistic thing to happen in 2022.
33. What was your favourite film of this year?
Films in general are not my preferred storytelling medium, and there weren't really any that absolutely blew my mind this year. Everything Everywhere All At Once was great, and Michelle Yeoh definitely deserves to win all the awards for it.
34. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
On the day itself I just relaxed around the house, went swimming, and read books. The day after, Matthias and I travelled to London to stay overnight before catching the Eurostar to Germany, and he took me out for dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant in Soho. I was thirty-eight.
35. How many different states/cities did you travel to in 2022?
Within the UK, I went to London several times, visited our friends in Northampton, saw women's football in Milton Keynes, went to Liverpool for a weekend, travelled back and forth to Cambridge for work, celebrated our five-year wedding anniversary with a weekend in Tuddenham Mill, and went to various East Anglian villages for day trips. I spent a weekend in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. In Germany, I was in Göttingen to celebrate Matthias's aunt and uncle's golden wedding aniversary, and in various east Westphalian towns over Christmas (plus stopovers in Amsterdam en route to and from Germany).
In Italy I was on a two-week holiday on the Amalfi coast: Amalfi, Praiano, Positano, Sant' Agata, Capri, Sorrento, plus nights in Naples at either side. In the US I was just in New York.
36. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2022?
I pretty much lived in pyjamas and athleisure wear this year, and I regret nothing.
37. What kept you sane?
Cooking. Yoga. Swimming laps in the pool. Reading. Walking every day in the beautiful fenlands outside my door. Growing things. Working slowly and methodically. Crossing things off lists.
Swimming in various beaches, bays and swimming pools in the open air on the Amalfi coast restored my soul.
In general, being able to travel internationally mended something that was broken in me.
38. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I feel like this question is aimed at someone whose sense of attraction is different to my own.
39. What political issue stirred you the most?
As you can probably tell by this point, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the Ukrainian and global respone to it.
I also got briefly engaged in Australian politics again in the lead-up to the election.
40. How many concerts did you see in 2022?
Three: God Is An Astronaut, Goldfrapp, and SHXCXCHCXSH.
41. Did you have a favourite concert in 2022?
They were all good in different ways, but God Is An Astronaut was probably my favourite, for reasons that I can't really articulate.
42. Who was the best new person you met?
I'm struggling to think if I met any new people in person this year, other than people with whom I came into contact through work.
I am so grateful this year that I am in fandom, because I met so many fantastic new people through Dreamwidth.
43. Did you do anything you are ashamed of this year?
No.
44. What was your most embarrassing moment of 2022?
I'm not easily embarrassed.
45. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2022.
Put effort and energy into a few things that matter deeply to you, rather than spreading yourself thinly and superficially across a multitude of things. Take a small handful of causes, spaces, personal and professional goals, and relationships and apply a laser-like focus to them. Anything else is a recipe for guilt, grief and burnout.
I think I always knew this, but 2022 was the year I relearnt it.
46. What are your plans for 2023?
Continue to enact the life lessons I outlined in answer to question 45. To finally tackle a couple of the big scary mental health things that I've been kind of avoiding dealing with for the past four or five years.
To grow among the growing things.
47. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
The stars explodes a storm
A billion seasons born
A shock to the waves I know, breaking far from shore
[...]
Speak in silent tongues
Lies reflect the times
The ghosts and the shadows fill the living scene
Don't want to talk
All I hear is noise
Don't want to talk
And, of course:
Hold your colour against the wall
When they take everything away
1. What did you do in 2022 that you'd never done before?
I struggled with this question, because besides visiting a couple of new cities/towns/regions in countries to which I had previously travelled, I don't really feel this was a year of a lot of new experiences. There was a lot of 'more of the same,' and that's one thing I definitely want to change in 2023.
2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
My resolutions for 2022 were, as they have been for several years now, to carve out spaces of safety, kindness, empathy and beauty where I can, to draw my own personal lines in the sand, and hold to them, to support and live and love with integrity, and to remember, always, that love, love is a verb, love is a doing word.
I actually think this year I did this really well.
I had some concrete professional goals relating to teaching, getting published, presenting at conferences, and so on, and these were all achieved.
My resolutions for 2023 are probably a mixture of the above. I want to stick to my 'fire can be a candle flame' resolution that I've made each new year since 2016, and will continue to do my best, no matter what my various countries throw at me. I have resolved every year to make light, and warmth, and kindness in the smallness of my own life, and accept that this is enough. Again, I have a few concrete professional and personal goals, but I prefer to keep those private until the close of the next year.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Several friends from different spheres of my life had babies.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
One of my great aunts — my maternal grandmother's youngest sister. She, like everyone in that generation, had a wonderful self-deprecating sense of humour that revolved around making every personal anecdote (no matter how horrifying, and there was a lot of horror in my grandmother and her siblings' early life) sound like an amusing adventure. This tendency is definitely very much alive in my mother's generation, and my own, and I'm extremely grateful for it — it's a wonderful (and oddly useful) legacy.
5. What countries did you visit?
I went to Germany twice, in April and over Christmas, I went to the Netherlands for a professional conference (and long weekend with Matthias), I went to Italy for two weeks with my mother, and I went to New York in September for a wedding/holiday with Matthias and Mum.
6. What would you like to have in 2023 that you lacked in 2022?
For at least six year now, I've answered this question by saying that I wanted hope for the future, and remarked that while I had experienced completely unearned personal and professional success and happiness, things had got bleaker and bleaker in terms of the state of the world. This year, weirdly enough, the positions have been reversed.
It may seem odd to say that I feel the world at large is heading in the right direction: we've got an ongoing pandemic, we have a full-scale war in Europe (which I personally believe is a world war, we just haven't realised it yet because we expect 'world wars' to look like they did in the twentieth century), we have awful dictators and human rights abuses all around the world, climate change is as dire as ever, the aggrieved far-right remains a global problem, etc etc. And yet I feel that at last people who broadly share my ideological perspective (including those in positions of political authority) have woken up to the scale of the problem and — slowly, incrementally, imperfectly — started taking steps to turn all this around. And so, although I don't think it is easy, and I don't think we'll get there without making mistakes, and arguing with our own allies, and what we're up againsts is in some ways overwhelming, I have the hope I've been lacking in the future of the world, and of humanity, since 2016.
For various reasons, my planned trip to Australia over Christmas this year was unable to go ahead, but I have flights booked for March/April in 2023, so I will echo my wish of last year: this year, I have one other overwhelming wish: to see my family in person, to hug my mother and sister, to be swept up in the chaos and disorganisation of my paternal and stepfamily, to see the sun sparkle on Sydney Harbour, and the sweep of the Australian sky. To swim in all those southern oceans.
7. What date from 2022 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
24th February, the date of the start of the full scale invasion of Ukraine. It's such a demarcation line in my understanding and thinking: it woke me up, and clarified my own sense of purpose.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I don't really feel as if I had one standout achievement — it was more like a bunch of smaller things: professional successes (a lot of journal publications, a very well-received conference presentation), little bits and pieces around the house, maintaining a generally good routine, etc.
9. What was your biggest failure?
I don't really think of it as a failure, but I suffered from several periods of mental darkness, and it sapped my strength and at times destroyed my joy in things that generally make my life feel worthwhile.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I had COVID over the northern hemisphere summer (although I know this isn't the case for everyone, for me it was extremely mild with just one day of heavy cold symptoms), food poisoning in late November, and my usual periodic colds.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
Not one thing, but the various tickets and accommodation and meals and activities for international travel.
12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
Honestly, that of every Ukrainian as they fought an existential battle for survival as individuals, as a nation, and for the right to chart their own political and foreign policy course. They restored something that was broken in me.
Supporters of Ukrainians both on a national/political/diplomatic/military level, and on an individual level, who showed that it is possible to enact foreign policy that is both moral and self-interested. It is my greatest wish that we could see more of this in more parts of the world, becasue it shows what is possible when a people's will to fight for their democracy and human rights is provided with an adequate level of global support.
My fellow Australian voters surprised me by changing our government for the better.
13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
The usual endless list of murderous authoritarian and dictatorial political leaders (for obvious reasons most notably Putin and his regime, but unfortunately violent authoritarianism is a global phenomenon), our travesty of a 'government' in the UK, the far right in various countries, tankies and other geopolitical abuse apologists, and various incopetent and/or predatory men who continue to fail upwards into positions of power.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Mortgage repayments, and just the day to day cost of living. Probably costs associated with international travel as well.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
All my international holidays. Being able to see my mum in person for the first time since 2019.
16. What song will always remind you of 2023?
It's three songs this year:
'Hold Your Colour' — Pendulum
'Let Me Go' - Salt Ashes
'Standing on the Shore' — Empire of the Sun
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Happier about the world, sadder about myself.
ii. thinner or fatter? About the same.
iii. richer or poorer? Slightly poorer. *cries in inflation*
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
I wish I had read more books. I read 87, which is low for me, but I know that I went for weeks at a time doing nothing but scrolling through Twitter, which definitely ate into a lot of time I would previously have spent reading.
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Endless purposeless scrolling through social media.
20. How did you spend Christmas?
I went to Germany with Matthias to visit his family — our first time together in three years at Christmas (and first time in Germany in four; in 2019 they came to us). We stayed with his sister and her husband and kids, who have now moved into Matthias's parents' old house (the parents now live in a small bungalow in another town). On Christmas Eve we did the regular get-together to unwrap presents and eat cold seafood for dinner, and on Christmas Day we went to Matthias's parents' place (my sister-in-law and her family went to visit her husband's family) where I cooked lunch. It was a somewhat exhausting trip, and I feel like I had no time to think, but it was fun to be around children at that time of year and I'm glad we went.
22. Did you fall in love in 2022?
My love for Matthias is that ever-burning candle flame that lights and warms my life.
23. Did your heart break in 2022?
It broke for others, so many times, but not for myself.
24. What was your favourite TV program?
Babylon Berlin's fourth season, by a significant margin. Honourable mention to Andor, Yellowjackets (which began in 2021 but we finished in 2022), and Derry Girls.
25. Where were you when 2022 began?
In Ely.
26. Who were you with?
With Matthias.
27. Where will you be when 2022 ends?
In Ely.
28. Who will you be with when 2022 ends?
Matthias. We'll watch a trio of Rian Johnson films (Glass Onion, Brick, and Knives Out, and graze on cheese and charcuterie.
29. What was the best book you read?
I read 87 books in 2022. Barring rereads, my favourite books were probably Perhaps the Stars (Ada Palmer), The House with the Golden Door (Elodie Harper), and Fierce Appetites (Elizabeth Boyle).
30. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Salt Ashes was a fantastic new-to-me musical discovery. I have Matthias to thank for introducing me to the marvellous Rue Oberkampf.
31. What did you want and get?
A change in government in Australia. For Boris Johnson to no longer be the prime minister of the UK.
32. What did you want and not get?
For Boris Johnson to be replaced by someone less horrific than he is. Obviously I want a Ukrainian victory in the war, but I did not think this was a realistic thing to happen in 2022.
33. What was your favourite film of this year?
Films in general are not my preferred storytelling medium, and there weren't really any that absolutely blew my mind this year. Everything Everywhere All At Once was great, and Michelle Yeoh definitely deserves to win all the awards for it.
34. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
On the day itself I just relaxed around the house, went swimming, and read books. The day after, Matthias and I travelled to London to stay overnight before catching the Eurostar to Germany, and he took me out for dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant in Soho. I was thirty-eight.
35. How many different states/cities did you travel to in 2022?
Within the UK, I went to London several times, visited our friends in Northampton, saw women's football in Milton Keynes, went to Liverpool for a weekend, travelled back and forth to Cambridge for work, celebrated our five-year wedding anniversary with a weekend in Tuddenham Mill, and went to various East Anglian villages for day trips. I spent a weekend in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. In Germany, I was in Göttingen to celebrate Matthias's aunt and uncle's golden wedding aniversary, and in various east Westphalian towns over Christmas (plus stopovers in Amsterdam en route to and from Germany).
In Italy I was on a two-week holiday on the Amalfi coast: Amalfi, Praiano, Positano, Sant' Agata, Capri, Sorrento, plus nights in Naples at either side. In the US I was just in New York.
36. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2022?
I pretty much lived in pyjamas and athleisure wear this year, and I regret nothing.
37. What kept you sane?
Cooking. Yoga. Swimming laps in the pool. Reading. Walking every day in the beautiful fenlands outside my door. Growing things. Working slowly and methodically. Crossing things off lists.
Swimming in various beaches, bays and swimming pools in the open air on the Amalfi coast restored my soul.
In general, being able to travel internationally mended something that was broken in me.
38. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I feel like this question is aimed at someone whose sense of attraction is different to my own.
39. What political issue stirred you the most?
As you can probably tell by this point, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the Ukrainian and global respone to it.
I also got briefly engaged in Australian politics again in the lead-up to the election.
40. How many concerts did you see in 2022?
Three: God Is An Astronaut, Goldfrapp, and SHXCXCHCXSH.
41. Did you have a favourite concert in 2022?
They were all good in different ways, but God Is An Astronaut was probably my favourite, for reasons that I can't really articulate.
42. Who was the best new person you met?
I'm struggling to think if I met any new people in person this year, other than people with whom I came into contact through work.
I am so grateful this year that I am in fandom, because I met so many fantastic new people through Dreamwidth.
43. Did you do anything you are ashamed of this year?
No.
44. What was your most embarrassing moment of 2022?
I'm not easily embarrassed.
45. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2022.
Put effort and energy into a few things that matter deeply to you, rather than spreading yourself thinly and superficially across a multitude of things. Take a small handful of causes, spaces, personal and professional goals, and relationships and apply a laser-like focus to them. Anything else is a recipe for guilt, grief and burnout.
I think I always knew this, but 2022 was the year I relearnt it.
46. What are your plans for 2023?
Continue to enact the life lessons I outlined in answer to question 45. To finally tackle a couple of the big scary mental health things that I've been kind of avoiding dealing with for the past four or five years.
To grow among the growing things.
47. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
The stars explodes a storm
A billion seasons born
A shock to the waves I know, breaking far from shore
[...]
Speak in silent tongues
Lies reflect the times
The ghosts and the shadows fill the living scene
Don't want to talk
All I hear is noise
Don't want to talk
And, of course:
Hold your colour against the wall
When they take everything away