I’ve been celebrating the end of 2022 with the flu. Or at least I guess that’s what it is, given that I tested negative for COVID. Or, maybe I didn’t test myself enough and maybe it was indeed COVID. Or RSV. At this stage in the year, It feels like it could have been anything.
Looking at where we were about three years ago, when we first heard of a virus spreading outward from China, I’m getting light déjà vu vibes. Italy and the US are mandating COVID tests for arrivals from China. The first flight to Milan from China once they opened up their borders for travel again, and 52% of the flight tested positive for the virus. So I feel like it’s only a matter of time before the newest wave of whatever strain is out there finally reaches us. This time around however, I don’t feel quite as much fear. This is because I’m in the vaccine/face mask believer camp. As we move into 2023, I’d like to think that I’ve picked up a few more tools for my toolbox.
This year I’ve felt pretty worn down. And I kind of wonder if I’d be experiencing the same fatigue even if we didn’t have a pandemic and loads of respiratory disease swirling around us. On a more simplistic level, from time to time I’ve postulated that if I were an adult in the 1980s, or some other moment before the internet took a chokehold on our attention, would I still be feeling this tired?
I’ve been thinking a lot about this line from a classic of Italian literature, Il Gattopardo. It goes, “Se vogliamo che tutto rimanga com’è, bisogna che tutto cambi” or in English, “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.” Eh. After bumping around this planet for awhile, I’m inclined to believe that this is true. Also because, no matter how exceptional or unusual this period of existence may seem, I believe that this is all just a part of the human experience. We go through waves of malaise, stasis and joy—no matter if we’re coexisting with the printing press or a smartphone. I try to take this long view, and thus convince myself that I’d have this mental fatigue regardless of the specifics in my surroundings.
A big part of me wants to walk around and ask folks my age and higher how they felt around this point in life. No matter what they’ve got going on in particular, I want to know whether the maintaining of daily order starts to feel wearing once they hit their mid-forties. My sense is that this is a common thread, and so by asking I can selfishly find comfort in sharing a lived experience. Perhaps this is all I am looking for as we finish out the year and wonder about what’s coming.
I feel immensely grateful to have a 2023 on tap to look forward to. My health and the state of those around me are a luxury to reflect upon—this much I have learned while experiencing the sharp edges of 2022. During the more trying times I have picked up a few more skills after fumbling with these instruments of life.
I don’t want to come off as complaining that, oh my god I *just* made it through this year and now I have to now deal with 2023. It’s not quite like that. Rather, I’ve come to understand that whatever lies just ahead is a blank canvas for all of us where anything can be added at any time. Depending on your perspective, maybe you’ll look forward to the more positive possibilities—and maybe if you’ve been scrolling too much social media, you’ll weight the sinister possibilities more heavily. As for me, I don’t see myself as Bob Ross but rather his dog sitting just below and watching with limited comprehension for what his master strokes are creating.
I don’t have any resolutions for 2023, but I do have a colorful list of things for which I am grateful for in 2022. Like being able to grab Sharpies at 6AM and create a big 85th birthday sign for my dad to see when he came in the house on that morning. Or how I got to spend Thanksgiving with my entire family under one roof. Or getting to finally travel north in Italy to see the Christmas markets that I wanted to see last year, but couldn’t do so because of COVID. These are only high points from the very end of the year. In fact there is much, much more that I feel grateful for.
And indeed, when I stop and think about the bright spots in my retrospective of 2022, suddenly I don’t feel as tired. I recognize all of the effort it took to get myself to this place and that, in order to reunite with friends and family, of course there is going to involve some fatigue. Some work on my part. Not only are we soft-bellied human beings who are growing older and losing stamina each day—but also, it is no small thing to rejoice in achieving even a single reunion together. Each one takes time, coordination and patience on both sides.
Last night I chatted with my best friend as she was out doing some solo shopping for her kids. We talked about all kinds of things, but even as our lives are physically distanced by an ocean, she commented on how she just wasn’t really feeling it this year. It’s the weight of things, the stressors and to do lists that keep us all just focused on rowing. But I found her words of honesty a comfort.
Similarly, my childhood best friend sent me a care package last week from the Pacific Northwest of the USA. This came after another very honest phone conversation at Thanksgiving. She sent me an assortment of locally-made goods—but there was one obvious high point: a small jade green clay middle finger that she proposed as a potential ring holder. She grew up just down the street from me, and as such, she knows everyone and everything about me: a true Mashpee kid. Maybe she sent the finger because it made her laugh. But I took it as a bit of a statement piece for all of the world’s possibilities: beauty, utility, comedy and exasperation. To me it was the most fitting way to encapsulate the year that has just passed. And, come midnight I can rotate to face whatever might be coming once we all wake up tomorrow.
I’m tired, but I still have my sense of humor—even as I continue to cough up whatever is still in my head from this cold. Apart from the flu, my goal for next year is to maintain my sense of humor even as I gradually make out whatever is sketched on life’s cosmic blank canvas. It’s all gonna be something, and if we stick together, I’m convinced we can make the experience a lot more enjoyable.