You know how when you get sick you think, “This will be okay. I can get caught up on my reading, make sure I’m ready to do my taxes, yadda, yadda.” You think these things, right?
But all those things you think you’re going to do, you do none of them. You’re too tired and your head hurts and your eyes are blurry or watery or something too hard to figure out because it’s too hard to think.
On Tuesday, December 20, I woke up with a head cold. Since I was planning to drive to New Jersey the next day, I took a Covid test. It was positive. I stared at that second pink line in disbelief, then called my mom.
Newly grounded, I planned to use Solstice, December 21, to reflect on my 2022, and make plans for 2023.
Wednesday morning, I sat in my big chair under a heavy blanket, one arm out, small journal in hand. The journal is set up like a datebook and every night I write three things on today’s date:
- Something I am thankful for.
- Something I accomplished.
- Something I’m looking forward to tomorrow.
The journal is small, the space to write is constrained. There’s just enough room to answer those three bullets.
As I sat in my big chair, my plan was to scan through the journal, get a sense for the year (which hadn’t been that good), and then quickly move on to plans for 2023. Thanks to Covid, that isn’t how it went.
I would read through a few pages, maybe a month or two, then fall asleep. When I woke up, I’d read a few more pages before sleep grabbed me again. Reading the journal took the whole day. At dinner time, when I finished the last completed pages of December, I had a different view of my year.
There was a range of things I was grateful for, some big, most small. There were many more accomplishments than I remembered. There were many simple little lovely things I looked forward to.
2022 was a good year.
Chewing the Cud of Good
Thankful for quantitative evidence. And a gift from a friend back when I had to return Titus the cat.