Is it 2022 yet?

A not-so-fond farewell to the horror show of the last 2 years

Dear Reader,

You know that thing that happens every January? You're writing out the date, and even though you remind yourself when you grab the pen, your sneaky brain still manages to whisper "last year" at your dumb fingers? So you've got to tear up the check, or erase your paper, or, if you're the luckiest of lucky, you can morph that last digit into the correct one, fooling ... absolutely no one.

Wanna know how many times that happened to me in 2021?

Not even once.

Not a single time did I have to lament the wasting of a precious check or perform my best ink gymnastics.

You might say it's because I basically didn't leave the house until summer. But I have a different explanation. 2020 was basically the worst year on record. Yes, I met my sweet, amazing little baby boy - my last born, who we welcomed into the world through a secret portal in my basement TV room (read all the innuendo you want into that one 😂), but other than that things just completely sucked. I won't lay out every single struggle - some you know already, and some you doubtless shared, and there comes a point when we don't need a detailed reminder of just how screwed things were.

Whatever the reason, when 2020 finally slunk away like the dog who just has the family's favorite pet chicken for lunch - castigated, yet still with a satisfyingly full belly - my first act was to forget it had ever happened.

Not once did I mistakenly write 2020 on the header of a letter or the calendar part of my planner. In full transparency, I did once write "2011" in my workout notebook, but I think that's understandable given the circumstances.

Looking back on 2021, I think I can speak for many of us when I say - we all had really high hopes for it. Hopes that were, in just so many regards, dashed and disappointed. Sure, some really good things happened. But some really, really bad ones did, too. Every time we started to get excited for a more normal world, something happened to add to all the frustration and depression we've been bathing in for the last two years.

The politics of why we are where we are (at least here in the US) is a definite thing which I will 💯 be talking about here and elsewhere in the new year. But what's done is done and here we are once again looking back on a year that has been truly devastating in quite a few respects. The first month or so of the new one is going to be a bit of a mess. In fact, I can't remember a January in all my years that I've been less hopeful about. But after that, I've got a feeling that good things are going to happen - for me, but much more importantly, for the world.

Here's to a new year full of less dream chasing and more dream catching.

Until next time,