2020 was a bad year, and ended on a fairly downbeat note. 2021 was worse, starting under a great deal of stress, recovering just in time to suffer a massive setback, and then ending once again under the shadow of Covid.
My Year in... Blogging
I didn't set any formal goals for 2021, which means that there wasn't really anything to fall short of. That's probably a good thing, as at the time of writing I've managed a mere 95 posts here and 34 on the Imaginarium, where my usual targets would be 120 and 60.
In all honesty, I fear the Imaginarium is essentially finished with, so don't expect many posts in the future. I would, however, expect more posts on this blog in 2022.
My Year in... Work
The first five months of the year were pretty great for a number of reasons. Indeed, had you asked me in May of this year, I would have told you that I could see myself finishing my career with my current employers.
Then all the fears I implied in my end-of-year round-up from last year came to fruition. And the remainder of the year has basically been a disaster.
And I see no hope of things improving, which is a massive problem.
My Year in... Health
Somehow, we've all made it through 2021 (to present, at least) without a brush with Covid. 2021 also saw the safe, albeit exciting, arrival of Surprise! which was certainly a relief.
That's probably more than we really had any right to expect while in the midst of a pandemic.
My Year in... Gaming
I have been running two campaigns over Teams or Zoom this year. "The Mists of Lamordia" has continued to go well, despite taking far longer than I had intended or hoped. But it is now very definitely in the end-game - I hope to be finished by Easter.
"A Quest for Memory" ran well for a while, but then basically came to a halt for scheduling reasons. My suspicion is that it is now effectively done, as getting the party together is proving impossible, and it is sufficiently low-priority for people that one session was literally forgotten. We'll see - it will either resume soon or it won't resume.
Unfortunately, 2021 was the year in which I fairly definitively fell out of love with gaming. My plan now is to bring the two current campaigns to an end, and then hang up the dice bag. Probably permanently.
My Year in... Band
My band resumed practices late in the year, managed a grand total of two performances, and then had to cancel practices again due to Covid. However, I'm actually reasonably happy about things there - it is likely that we'll resume again early in 2022, and we're likely to have rather more events. I expect many, if not most, of the gala days to resume.
So that one is actually quite hopeful, despite the circumstances.
My Year in... Resolutions
As always, the wrap-up of annual goals, and setting of goals for next year, are handled in another post. And, as has been the pattern recently, it's very much a mixed bag.
My Year in... Travel
We had two holidays in 2021, both of them internal to Scotland - one trip to Dornoch for Dad's 75th birthday celebration, and one to Banff. Other than the arrival of Surprise!, those represent the high point of the year - despite not being particularly restful, they were both highly enjoyable.
I would dearly like to say that I expect that to change in 2022, but the truth is that I don't really expect much to change - we'll probably make one family trip to England, but I can't see us leaving the UK at any time next year.
My Year in... Faith
We finally gave up on remote church in February this year. Fortunately, we were then able to resume attendance in person, and have been going for a few months.
My fear is that this is quite likely to come to a halt again in the nearish future, but I mean to enjoy it while I can.
My Year in... Sadness
2021 saw the death of another much-loved mentor, as my advisor of studies at university passed on. I posted about this at the time - it was certainly sad, but came at the end of a long and happy life, so wasn't a cause for despair.
It also saw the death of Abbie, the last of three very old dogs my parents owned. (Technically, I think they adopted Abbie shortly after I left home, but she was well known to us before then. So it still counts.) She was very old, was in increasingly poor health, and had been much loved for many years, so while it was a sad event, it was also one that could be met with a sense of completion rather than excessive grief.
All in all, we've been extremely lucky.
My Year in... Love
Like so much this year, this has been a mixed bag. Because while we're obviously delighted at the arrival of Surprise!, and while Funsize continues to be a delight, there's no avoiding the fact that having children is hard work, and having two children is at least three times as hard as having one. Further, while Surprise! is a reasonably easy baby in many respects, his sheer size makes for its own challenges.
The other inescapable truth is that the year we've had has been one of enormous stresses. An awful lot of this year has consisted of getting up too early, going to work and dealing with unremitting stress, then stopping work and immediately dealing with children, and getting dinner, and all the rituals of family life... and then doing it all again. Then the weekend comes, and has too often been a case of doing nothing but battling with the kids just to get through. It's been really difficult, and really hasn't been helped by the need to limit contacts, more or less throughout.
The truth is that couples need time together, and they need time apart, and they need time together alone, and for most of this year finding quality time of any of those sorts has been almost impossible. Even such basic things as going out to the cinema, or a meal out, or meeting friends has largely been a no-go, and it so it's no surprise that things have become rather fraught.
Despite all that, we're still here. I'm still remarkably lucky that I'm married to my best friend, and that she continues to tolerate me even now. And in this regard I am hopeful that 2022 will be better than 2021 - now that the kids are that bit older, and especially now that Surprise! has moved past those tricky first six months when he's firmly tethered to Mummy, so we should now be a little more free. Plus, we're getting to the point where we just can't continue to let Covid so completely constrain us, so that will also have to free things up at least a bit.
At least, that's the hope...
My Year... Overall
This has been a really tough year for several reasons, and with many of the usual pressure valves blocked by Covid and other issues. The upshot is the 2021 was the worst year I've had for some time, and coming after 2020 and 2019, that's a bad run. The highlights were very great... but they were also few and far between.
Unfortunately, I don't really believe that things will naturally get better, so I've reached the point where I think there's a need to make them better. Which is potentially difficult, stressful, and really not what I need. But given the alterative, that's where we are.
As always, this will be my final post on this blog for the year, so I'll take the opportunity now to wish anyone still reading a very Happy New Year when it comes. Thanks for sticking with me!
