By: Revanche

Random thoughts on 2022

July 26, 2022

Where we are in life: Married ten years, two kids, a dog. Mostly still hermiting with the pandemic and not hating the much reduced social life aspect of things even if I hate almost everything else about the pandemic, though we have in person school and camp and may have childcare this year.

I don’t think I’d have predicted any of this back in 2006. Maybe marriage, definitely dogs. Actually, I think PiC was in the picture by then so I think my line of thought was we’d probably get married but I was open to the idea that we might go a different way.

I think about the number of people who made it to the 9-12 year range and divorced recently. I’m glad they could divorce because they were so unhappy in their marriages. People deserve to be respected and loved in their relationships. I am also grateful that we still very much love and respect each other even when we experience friction. When we have conflict, it’s uncomfortable for a while. Usually, we figure it out in some kind of way and move along. Some dear friends are peeking at 20 years just over their horizon and I’m so happy for them too.

I like that we can tease each other mercilessly, but very fondly, about our flaws. It’s good natured, not mean spirited.

We’re deeply imperfect people, and we recognize that, which makes it possible for us to critique the decisions we’ve made, respectively, and talk over what we would do instead in the future so we’re more constructive. Particularly with parenting. We struggle with our flawed parenting but it’s helpful to work through that struggle and self doubt together.

Both of us are established in our careers and are at the same mental place right now: holding steady and keeping on top of our financial goals is good enough. We aren’t feeling any desire to climb ladders and be ambitious. Surely that’s because we’re living the survival lifestyle right now, just making it day to day, but also, maybe that’s where we are with our life priorities and that’s ok too. It would take LOT more money, twice as much as least, to make it worth making our lives any little bit more challenging and even then I’d think twice. Maybe double the money isn’t worth it even if it gets us to any goals faster because money can’t directly buy rest or sanity and that’s all I want right now: my family to be safe from medical long term effects of COVID and for us adults not to go stark raving before things get better.

I’ve done a lot of self reflection with therapy in the last few years. Don’t love what I see, but seeing it is one of the most important reasons I’ve made any progress. Seeing my past for what it was, seeing how “funny” stories actually affected my thinking and my attitudes. I have a ways to go still but this has been good for me in ways I never thought possible.

Living in 2022 feels absolutely surreal most days.

Big picture: We lost Roe v Wade and much of the Democratic leadership has been hair-pulling-out frustrating in response. I see how other rights are under threat and it feels like if things are going to get better, it’ll be a long time coming and a lot of people are going to get hurt along the way.

The push for marriage equality began in the midst of the devastation of AIDS, not because people wanted a fancy party. Life partners were suddenly without any rights (or often access) during and after their beloveds’ illness.

& now there are more queer families w/kids at stake. https://t.co/gOD88jpnb4

— Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg (@TheRaDR) July 10, 2022

In big and small ways, the losses from this time of COVID are still reverberating and I can’t understand how so many people are just absolutely impervious to the notion that a million people plus have died whether COVID related or not. Hell, my own circles are now at 10 deaths over 19 months. That’s not normal. That’s so much loss.

So much has changed drastically in a short time and people just want to go back to some normal that was never really good anyway. I wish we had more collective desire to have vision for a better future.

Small picture, well. There’s stress and cracks in the system everywhere. We see it in the daycare center being at 3/4 capacity for many reasons, but most particularly lack of staffing. We see it in the community programs that are so oversubscribed that they won’t even wait-list us. We see it in the inability to buy a car without paying a giant premium we aren’t willing to spend. We see it in the choices we have to make about travel because so many around us only care about themselves and won’t mask or vaccinate. Or our choices to see family, if we see them, because some of them don’t take illness seriously at all and so I guess we just don’t have a whole branch of family until we have enough personal protection in place. It doesn’t matter to them, I guess. I miss my dear friends who have been, in some way, deeply affected by the stressors of these years and have gone offline. I miss feeling like we belonged and feeling connected to people we care about.

The big hurts and the little hurts all add up.

I take comfort in my little family here, my chosen family who remain supportive, but it’s truly a strange time in life right now.

Also? I’m about to have a second grader and I truly can’t comprehend THAT. 👀