Paul Davidson
Yearnotes 2022
A big year for life events. I’m in my forties now. The Chef is pregnant. And Piglet has moved to her (hopefully) Big School.
We all got to try out Covid for the first (and second) time too. Thankfully nothing lasting or too incapacitating. More irritating than life-threatening. Which is still, well, irritating.
Reviewing 2021’s resolutions returns an expectedly mixed scorecard:
- More life, less work. Score: Ish
- More music, less podcasting. Score: Win
- More friends, less couch. Score: Miss
- Writing. That’s both Morning Pages and punctual Weeknotes. Score: More often than occasional
- Piglet doesn’t have closed and rounded shoulders. Score: TBD
When I’m planning this year’s, I’ll build in tighter feedback loops to try and score a bit higher.
A year in updates
Nests. Notebooks. Teletubbies. Prestige. Covid. Repaired. Nice. Meltdowns. Stag. Calamari. Poignant. Opinions. Rowing. Dutch. Hole. Threshers. Baldy. Alan. Dracula. Why?. Vibes. Off-grid. Jubilee. Digger. Narc. Three. London. Geordie. Subtle. Sentences. Lionesses. Babybels. Celebrations. 40. Hungover. Decaf. Soot. Morris. Diagnoses. Pomodoro. Libraries. Pregnant. Confinement. Lollipop. Sharing. Janice. Soppy. Missus!. Privacy. Concert. Bigjobs.
Consumption
Books
They’re all here, but my select few would be Open Water for fiction, The Adoption Papers for poetry, Everything I Know about Life I learned from PowerPoint for non-fiction and Vattu for comics.
Films
More than usual. Started strong with Remains of the Day, finished strong with Knives Out, but my fav was Sound of Metal. Just heart-breaking in its unflinching honesty.
Music
Upheld resolution and did more than last year. The usual discordant mish-mash playlist of a track a week is here. Dance Fever by Florence and the Machine was definitely the ear worm of the year.
Games
I’m plodding through Spiritfarer (I’ve already had a teary farewell) and I’m excited for the release of Terra Nil after the first level demo. Positive, relaxed games are the vibe around here.
On the phone, I sunk far too many hours into Nonograms. To the point that I’m thinking of deleting the app to get some time back. Which segues nicely into 2023 resolutions.
2023
There has to be less phone this year. Part of my current funky mood is the lack of reflection time because I’ve jammed it full of browsing or low-effort play. I’ve already turned on focus mode for office hours and I’m thinking about a version for the evenings. As a resolution it’s describing the action rather than the outcome which is to think and feel more. Generally be more engaged with life. I am in my forties after all…
On the parenting front, I’d like to feel the terrifying beat of doing nothing more. Counting a breath before jumping in and letting Piglet find her own voice and ideas. There’ll be the obvious teaching and basic life skills stuff, but it’s going to be more amazing to see her.
And sticking with the parenting, the big one is going to be introducing a sibling to the mix. It’s terrible of me, but in the first draft I’d left this out. Freudian anxiety? Or the natural tiredness of the end of the year? I’m sure the answer will be apparent when I re-read in a few years and realise the obvious answer that I can’t see here.
So restrained, full-hearted engagement? An oxymoronic set of resolutions. Can’t wait to try and score these.
I hope your 2023 is a kind one.
9 January 2023