What a year of joy and sorrow. Of pleasure and pain. Of fear and relief. Of coming to terms with life yet again.
In a couple of weeks we will celebrate my mother’s 90th birthday. Ninety years is a long time and worthy of commemoration. Who knows, she might make 100 at this rate? But that is next year.
In the meantime, as 2021 closes, we can have no certainty as to what the next decade will bring. I fear for myself as old age creeps up on me in a chaotic world, but I fear even more for the future of my children and grandchildren. I was a child in a world still profoundly affected by WWII and in the shadow of the Cold War, but with my fellow baby-boomers in the west I experienced a prolonged period of peace and prosperity. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the parting of the bamboo curtain it was tempting to think that would last forever, or at least for our lifetimes.
That is not the case.
The signs were there all along. How many pandemic doco’s and dramas did you actually watch before we had a pandemic? How badly did Putin have to threaten before we believed he might act? And what was Tianamen Square and the upturn of all that Hong Kong represented if not a warning that China was just biding its time? Not to mention Rachel Carsen’s “Silent Spring” and the countless warnings we have had about the state of the planet. And should not Reagan, Thatcher, the Bush father and son, and their followers here and elsewhere have alerted the liberal west that its days were numbered?
When I was a child I thought the world might end in a nuclear holocaust. It still might. But what is apparently more likely is that it will drag on in an ever descending pattern of deprivation and misery unless we wake up and make some drastic changes.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. It seems the world will end not with a bang but a whimper.
It also seems this piece has gotten away from me. I had meant to focus on the personal, not the global. You will think me alarmist, possibly insane, and grandiose. But ask me if the above is what I really think, and I will answer, “yes”. It is what I fear and yet it is my optimism that prevails. Perhaps we will repent, reform, re-group – and survive for another decade or century or millennium. Who knows? Not me – I probably will not be around to see it. Not God – he/she/or it does not exist. Not our leaders and politicians. Not scientists, who can only predict based on what has gone before. And not our children, although they might yet be able to save us.
So to the personal. I have always been attracted to that variously attributed and expressed piece of wisdom – “Life is shit, and then we die.” It keeps me grounded when things go wrong, but does not prevent me celebrating what goes right.
This second year of COVID has been so much harder than the first. This time last year in NZ we were celebrating our freedoms and giving thanks to be living here. Now, thanks to Delta and Omicron, we know better. Life has been changed forever and people have changed too. They might not realise it yet, but our innocence and wilful ignorance can never be restored. We are better or worse people for it, but no one can not have changed. Never again can we assume bad things only happen to other people who live somewhere else. We are part of a global community and we are all in this together. When a river delta dries up in south east Asia or 800,000+ people die of COVID in the USA, we are all affected.
My year has been like that of so many others I suspect. Two lockdowns this year, coming on top of 2020, has severely damaged my will to travel or socialise. There is something so temptingly relaxing about not being able to go out for anything but exercise and groceries. I have not had to feel bad about not inviting people to dinner, cooking for crowds, going to events or movies, or getting up early in the morning. Seasons and days have rolled unthreateningly into each other, and the introvert in me has not complained.
Even so, things have happened over this last year. Good and bad.
My children have made life changes. A new home for one, and all the stress and joy that brings. My grandson, unleashed into his own copious space for the first time, has grown in stature and boldness. Like a seedling planted in fertile soil, he has flourished. For the other an evolving relationship has brought new challenges and personal growth. We end the year in good form I think, as a family.
For Johan there has been a frightening health scare with ongoing consequences. A bout of vertigo, probably caused by a virus, saw him rushed to hospital in the middle of the night a week into the Level 4 lockdown. The vertigo ended after a scary couple of days, but he is permanently deaf in one ear, with consequences for his balance (improving) and spatial awareness. Partial deafness, it turns out, is more than just annoying. It is a serious disability.
On the positive site, an annoying gastric issue has proved not to be a return of colon cancer (he wanted to retain what is left of that organ) and seems likely to need to be managed through diet. Not an easy solution, but better than the alternative.
For myself, being in lockdown did not send me into an orgy of walking or cycling, or indeed any form of exercise. Quite the reverse. As a consequence I am feeling my years more than I should, and will need to mend my ways in the new year. Johan has bought a brand new, super-flash e-bike and is enthusiastically cycling around town. I have walked to the bus stop and caught the bus to work twice. Perhaps I can improve on that.
I started the year as a partner in a law firm with no firm idea of what I wanted to do other than an awareness change was needed. After some thought I retired from the partnership intending to stay on as a consultant. But such things can take unaccountable turns, and this one did. So I have a new start as special counsel in a new firm, and retirement has receded into the distance for now. It was perhaps the most tumultuous event of my professional life and left me adrift in the middle of winter even before lockdown cut off our oxygen. I have learnt …… I don’t really know what I have learnt!
I am dispensable, but I am valuable. I am liked, but I am not trusted. People are fearful, suspicious. People are willing to take risks, appreciative of skills. I am right, I am wrong – I have to listen to and trust my own inner voice.
Anyway, we move on.
Perhaps I end this year more aware of my scars than usual. But scar tissue is strong and I have a lot to be grateful for. My friends, some of whom are beginning to face their own health issues. The continuing tenacity of my mother in the face of extreme old age. My family, including my grandson who transfixes me with wonder and joy every time I see him. The little dog who shares my apartment and despite my lack of pet connection follows me everywhere I go, even to the toilet. And Johan, who senses my every mood, backs off when he needs to, and supports me as if I were a world champion.
Will I make new year resolutions? Perhaps. Or maybe just stick to the one enduring principle that has always carried me through life. “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” I do not always serve it faithfully, but I believe it is all I really need so I do my best.
Oh dear, the optimism is creeping in again. Here we go 2022 – hoping and trying for the best.