The last three years I've used some interesting and challenging questions to write this last post of the year, so I'm going to do it again.
1. What makes this year unforgettable?
The context of the year (coming after nearly two years of a global pandemic) makes it both forgettable and unforgettable. Looking back even at this short distance at the pandemic and it's hard to remember what happened when, because we don't have big hooks to hang them on. There was a lot of "not doing" during 2020, 2021, and early 2022. However this year life began to change, moving closer to "normal", though masks are still a real part of our daily lives in Japan. We started the year not knowing when the borders would open again to tourists in Japan and end the year with our eldest son in our house (without a visa).
We will remember this year as the year we went to Australia in the middle of the year and did lots of fun stuff, as well as some hard stuff. August was a difficult month for me: I farewelled David and our youngest son at the start of the month, contracted COVID within a couple of days, and had some challenging times on my own with our middle son while living in someone else's house.
It was the year that our last son started his last year of high school. And we entered our last year of living in this house we've raised our family in since 2010.
2. What did I enjoy doing this year?
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| A sunset on a Queensland beach midyear. |
Walking after dinner with David is occasionally a chore, but more often than not it's a joy, even when the temperatures aren't really hospitable. I really missed the regular catchup with him when we were in Australia.
We've enjoyed watching cricket again on TV, finally they've begun to provide ways for fans in Japan to subscribe.
3. What/who is one thing/person I'm grateful for?
David. I rely on him a lot, but he also leans on me. We make a good team and don't function as well when we're apart. This year marked our 25th wedding anniversary. I'm so thankful.
4. What did I read/watch/listen to that made the most impact this year?
Again, I've really enjoyed listening to various episodes of the Undeceptions podcast.
I hit my target of 100 books read in 2022. But also discarded more than 20 books as "didn't finish", these were books that I'd invested time in (not just read a couple of pages). I'm getting more fussy about what I read, partly due to getting older, but also because I've got easy access to a whole library of ebooks. One of my loves is browsing in the library from the comfort of my own home (or, to be honest, bed...the place I do much of my reading).
Gentle and Lowly by Dane C. Orlund was a standout non-fiction book this year. I read it slowly over eight months (I usually read a couple of fiction books a week). I think I need to read it again. It's a balm to a weary soul. For example this sentence from Ch 4: "If you are in Christ, you have a Friend who, in your sorrow, will never lob down a pep talk from heaven. He cannot bear to hold himself at a distance."
Sacred Pathways by Gary L. Thomas was another really valuable book to read. I came across it through working on a magazine issue themed "Arts and Ministry". It showed me a few things about myself and my life experiences that I hadn't realised.
5. What did I worry about most and how did it turn out?
We had a prolonged passport/visa renewal situation that strung out over several months earlier in the year. In April we very nearly had an illegal immigrant in our household, but managed to dodge that by pleading with the embassy for an appointment. Flying to and from Australia is never fun, but it was pretty miserable this year. We had all our original flights to and from Australia cancelled by airlines. Our journey to Australia took 35 hours, which is more than three times the usual length. We also ended up paying more for peace of mind as we changed our return flights to ensure that we go there before our visas expired. Japan still required negative PCR tests and cancelled flights made that complicated. I worried a lot through all of this. I lost sleep, had headaches, reflux, and various bacterial, viral, and fungal infections, as well as asthma-complicated COVID.
I also worried about our eldest son's lack of employment. His savings ran very low this year before he finally found consistent work. This was very hard to watch.
6. What is my biggest regret?
Hard question! The Merriam Webster dictionary gives two disparate definitions of regret. One is a verb: to be very sorry for (a mistake) and the other is a noun: sorrow aroused by circumstances beyond one's control or power to repair.
There are things that happened that I regret, but I didn't have the power to change them. I regret that my family has sometimes caused pain for others, but much of that hasn't been within my power to change. I regret that others haven't understood us (sometimes because they don't have the life experience to help, or they have biases that mean they can't see the full picture), but again, while I may have tried to help others understand, their understanding is beyond my ability to change.
I regret some of the things I've said yes to and later ended up with too much on my plate, often because of things outside of my control or beyond my ability to anticipate what was coming in the future.
7. What's something that has changed about me?
I've begun to more strongly identify as a writer this year. When someone asks me what I do, I say "I'm a writer and an editor". That's an easy summary that doesn't overwhelm people. I haven't written a book, and don't (yet) have an ambition to, but that doesn't mean that I'm not a writer. Writing this post about life with mental illness was a bit of a turning point: https://mmuser.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-truth-about-journeying-with-illness.html
A close friend wrote this to me in early November: "Have been observing a really positive shift in you Wendy, from anxiety and feeling isolated to coming to peace with what is and inviting others into a space of being honest and vulnerable...which alleviates isolation for yourself and them also. Just thought you might like to hear from the outsider's perspective. God is good!! He's been at work and continues to be so." She connected a few dots I was too close to see, God has been good to me in giving me friends who will do that!
8. What surprised me most this year?
Some of the change we longed for during the depth of the pandemic was actually harder to adjust to than we would have imagined. I struggled to interact socially in a group at times this year, even in groups that I previously was fine with.
I was also pleasantly surprised by an opportunity to do an interview (for an article) with four Japanese people in the one afternoon, some of that was in English and some in Japanese.
9. What Bible truths impacted me this year?
A verse that has stuck with me arrived in my mail box in January last year (see here). It's Deuteronomy 31:8 "The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged." This was a great comfort, though I admit that in the midst of my worrying, I should have clung to it more tightly at times!
10. What meta-themes have I thought about this year? (in no particular order)
Highlights
- As I've already stated above: the week's holiday with friends.
- Being able to see our eldest son again and spend significant time with him.
- We only got one camping trip in this year, and it was a cold one marred by debilitating pain for one of our friends. But still it was a highlight.
- Seeing gradual improvement and growth in our boys. But it's been slow, small steps.
Lowlights
- This year I've only written 39 blog posts, the fewest in it's 13 ½ year existence. So it's ironic that I'm thinking of myself more as a writer than ever before!
- Watching my kids struggle in various realms and wondering about their futures.
- Feeling tired as a parent.
- The start of the year I was stretched way beyond what was healthy, partly by work, partly by responsibilities to my family, and partly with what had happened in 2020 and 2021.
Other thoughts
For much of this year "it's complicated" would probably have been a good response to people's questions to how I was at the time. I've lived more than half my life doing things in ways that most people don't understand. A call to overseas missions leads to a loss of friends and a loss of potential friends, I learned this early on. It turns out that walking with mental illness and neurodiversity is similar and leads to much misunderstanding, even amongst those you thought would "get it". You'd think I was used to this already, but it turns out I wasn't, and probably never will be. I'm ever so thankful to those who do "get me" and have stuck by through all the challenges this year, even when they didn't understand us or our decisions.
My first post of this year was remarkable in the lack of concrete thoughts I could muster for the coming year (or at least that I was willing to commit to a blog post). I think my first post in 2023 will be quite different to that. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
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