Happy New Year 2022 & Lessons Learned in 2021

 I have been sending the same gif to anyone who sends me a "Happy New Year" Text:

Do I feel particularly happy or celebratory? No. So many factors play into this Lieutenant Dan on New Year's vibe... take a pick! COVID, kids, expectations, exhaustion from a long work year, COVID, but we know the real reason New Year's Eve became a national day of mourning:

We lost the last Golden Girl, our Rose Nylund, America's Grandma just a few weeks shy of her official 100th birthday. I gotta tell you, her death I knew, would hit me when it happened but the way it hit me was a little unexpected. I know she's a literal stranger to me but her face is in my house in multiple places and she's felt like a part of my life for decades. What a lady. What a life! I spent the last day of 2021 just watching Betty White clips, reading Betty White tweets & tributes, and watching Golden Girls episodes. I got it together enough to setup a little New Year's Eve dinner table and she was present there too. 

We celebrated at 9pm for the kids at New Year's Eve New York time. I don't think they understand New Year's other than they can make noise and throw confetti which after last year's mess we opted out. 

Matt and I watched Golden Girls episodes and watched the countdown on my Nintendo video game. We were dressed up from the top up because I'll be danged if I receive a new year without some sparkle. 

What a year these exhausted parents and partners had. It wasn't great but it wasn't bad at all. It was pretty good, an improvement over the year before for sure. We decided to focus internally on survival however we could manage it and in tiny increments we held it together. Weekly disciplines, daily practices (Matt read the Bible in a year!), breaks and breaking of rules and expectations kept us afloat. 

I made no resolutions but instead let the year reveal to me what it was gonna be and as we whittled away here and there and chucked what we didn't need and tweaked what we did like and in the end, here's my musings/learnings from 2021:

• Makeup remover is not the same as face wash. Remove the makeup, then wash your face.
• Wash and moisturize your face.
• A quick shower is possible. 
• Changing into cozy clothes is worth the effort. Take a few minutes to take the jeans off and put on sweat pants. 
• I am not responsible for that.
• Put on your oxygen mask before you help others.
• Learn to distinguish which is a hill and which is a mountain.
• Some years, we just bide our time.
• The opposite of love is selfishness.
• Freedom is in your mind. In your imagination. Freedom comes from within.
• Be gentle with yourself whenever possible.
• The shovel is the only one that gets you 8 hits on the rock in ACNH.
• Honor and keep rituals of faith. They carry you when you can't carry yourself.
• Do good because it is good to do.
• At the end of days, whose life are you living and it better be the one you fought for.
• Rest does not mean nothing.
• Live knowing you left it all in the ring.
• Love casts out fear and I want to live unafraid.

Hello 2022. 

We're gonna warm up before we run. 

And we're gonna keep a steady pace.