I'm not even sure how to quantify this anymore. The level that 2022 sucks is hard to compare to the levels that 2021 and 2020 sucked. Let's take a longer view, then a true year in review.
For the longer view I started to consider something recently: Highs are higher in retrospect while lows are lower. Think of that like an image where the brighter areas get brighter and the darker areas get darker. The image grows more contrasty and more difficult to see. Well, I think looking at the past is like that. The past is better and worse than it was and it's more difficult to see how it truly was.
Without reading my year in reviews from 2013 and on, here's my basic thoughts on the last decade or so:
I got the job as a nurse and everything changed. There's "before" and "after" that moment. Before it was dark and sad and if I'm honest I was considering suicide. After it was light and happy and life was worth living. I try not to think in terms of wages or money earned, but I spend money as I get it and it's why my 'things' got better over the years. I went from a used Ford Focus Titanium (Fiona), to a brand new Ford Fusion Titanium Hybrid (Ginger), to a leased Ford Fusion Platinum (Isabella), to a new Ford Mustang GT (Nina), to a used Lincoln Nautilus Reserve (Tiffany). Fiona was $26,000 new and I paid $20,000 for it as a year old car. Each car went up in price with Ginger going for about $32,000, Isabella going for $40,000, and Nina listing for $49,000. Tiffany was $65,430 brand new in 2019 and then I paid $48,000 and change for her in 2021.
That progression in cars is kind of how everything went. From a $26,000 car to a $65,000 SUV. My computer progressed like that. My clothes progressed like that. My technology progressed like that. The things I purchased for others went like that including buying my Mom's $10,000 Caliber and her $21,000 Ford Escape. I started giving my neice and nephews $50 gift cards for Christmas and this year I gave my niece an iPad Pro and my nephews each got their own computer.
But all of that 'money' stuff was because of my earnings. I started my nursing career at $25 an hour (and was SO happy to get that). I'm now just a touch under $50 an hour. When the raise happens later in 2023 (still hard to think of that as THIS year), I'll be earning over $100,000 a year. I'd have laughed out loud if someone told me ten years ago that I'd be earning a six figure income just a decade later.
My friends have been a high and a low at the same time. My friendship with A detonated like a bomb. He was the only really close friend that lived close by. I'd spend some weekends with him which was fun. Football, beer, drinks, eating at new places, traveling... we had a lot in common. But it was a toxic friendship and he couldn't admit to that, let alone apologize for it. My other friend A (and his wife J) moved from Michigan to Texas. I changed from visiting them once or twice a month to visiting once or twice a year. And E has always had happy feet keeping him moving from place to place. We haven't lived in close proximity since living in Chicago together. But I still try to see him a couple times a year. J is a new friend, a nurse friend, that I met during this period and she's great. But we just seem to have trouble getting together and while I love her as a close friend I still feel that she's a step behind in the friendship ladder when compared to A and E.
Family has been a high and a low. My brother B went into financial ruin but finally pulled himself out almost single handedly. He now owns his own home which seemed impossible just four years ago. R got a great job, progressed up into management... and then quit. He hasn't been working for the past year. It's not like he's mooching off me or anything as he had about $50,000 saved up to buy a new car, but he doesn't seem interested in getting another job. And Mom.... well, she's been a steady slow decline during this entire time. Looking at the cars and remembering looking for her Ford Escape reminded me that we chose a local one because it would have been tiring for her to be out for an entire day if we went for one in a nearby town. Now? Now she couldn't even go to visit a dealership, let alone be out car shopping for hours on end.
Those are all part of the highs. And they look so much brighter now than I bet they did at the time they happened. But then there are the lows.
I mentioned losing A as a friend. That still hurts, but was it really as bad as I make it out to be now? A moving down to Texas sucked but does it suck as bad as I make it out to be? Mom's health decline IS a low and I may be underselling just how bad it is. R losing his job is bad but it's his choice right? He's financially independent and while I mentally rail against his choice, it's not as bad as I see it.
But then there's the job change. After three years at my first facility I moved to work closer at home and have a 'new' feel again. Three years later and I moved into management back at my 'home' facility. Three years later and I moved away from corrections... but those last two years were B A D. Over worked, policies changing on a seemingly daily basis, staff problems, management and leadership problems. And when I finally 'get out' and get into an easier job... I hate it. I mean I absolutely hate my job now.
And health. Since I started working as a nurse I got diagnosed with diabetes, had it get better then get a LOT worse. Finally got to an endocrinologist and I'd say I have it well under control now. I might even be on a path to drop insulin. I've had various other health problems but they've been short lived or are well managed. Then there's the migraines. Since diagnosis, they've just gotten steadily worse. Oh, it's not always a straight line from day to day, week to week, month to month, or even year to year, but the 'getting worse' scale looks like the stock market history... a line with many ups and downs that just continually gets worse (or better in the case of the stock market). I'm at my wits end with them right now.
So what have these ten years or so been overall? Good? Bad? I can say that for most of the beginning of that stage I was happier than I'd ever been. But while my finances have continued to improve, just about everything else is on a downward trend. Especially since COVID, but I can't blame it all on COVID. I can't even blame much of it on COVID. This is just me getting dark. Getting depressed.
So, with that thought in mind, let's look specifically at 2022. Like I started out above, 2022 sucked. It's main theme was having the job at the prison become unbearable (or at least what I considered to be unbearable at the time) and leaving for greener pastures. Then finding out that those greener pastures were just terrible making me pine for the 'good ol days'.
Health wise I've steadied out my diabetes in a good way. I haven't lost much weight and now am back to a more normal fluctuation. My eating is strange as I'm hungry but not interested in eating. I can go quite awhile without eating even though I feel 'hungry'. These past few months though, I've been eating more but I think that's just a symptom of depression. Migraines have grown worse. The Nurtec wasn't the panacea that I was hoping for and I started on Botox. But Botox will take upward of nine months to really evaluate, so that will be the main theme of 2023. My doc had me test for, and found some, blood in my stool and I'm now on the waiting list to get a colonoscopy. It's something that firmly puts me in my age group. And while I'm confident saying that it will be nothing except for some polyps, there's always that chance and that nagging fear that it's something worse. That its cancer. I also, for the past few months, have had this nagging problem with my right arm. It's not getting better so I'll eventually have to acknowledge it which will likely lead me back to a long stint of physical therapy just like my left arm did years ago.
There was the two bouts of COVID. One took me out for almost two weeks with really bad cold symptoms (no hospital, but still pretty bad) and more recently one that was a mild cold.
The big story for my health has been more on the mental side. This was a dark year for me. Prison, COVID, job change... they all were bad but I think it goes beyond them. They would all make me feel down or blue, but I'm afraid I'm dipping into depression. Depression like I felt before getting my job as a nurse. I still get joy out of some activities but it's not nearly as consistent or common as it was. Much of my time, day to day, week to week, hour to hour, is spent trying to get out of my own head. Reading, watching TV, or playing a game. I'm not really enjoying these activities, I'm just trying to leave the present and be someone/somewhere else. And it's not working. Once I stop those tasks, I return to me/here.
It's not that I want to kill myself. It's just that I no longer want to live this life.
There's my queerness too. I'm getting more comfortable with my own acknowledgement of it, but that's making me more and more bitter toward those that even joke about it. Primarily my family. I already know that I can't tell my brother R about who I really am while Mom is still alive. Which means I likely can't tell her either. I could share it with my brother B, but I wouldn't want his entire family to know as it would have to come with the "don't tell R or Mom/Grandma"... and I can't ask him or them to do that. My four closest friends all know (J, A and J, and E) but I think that's all that will ever really know.
Understand, I accept it. I'm not hiding it away from myself. My medical records have been changed to indicate "Non-Binary" as my gender. Whenever I have the chance to put my gender on something (credit cards, bank records, streaming services, game services...) I put either "Non-Binary", "Other" or "Prefer not to answer" if they only have "Male or Female" as options.
But accepting it has come with costs. It's made me realize what some of my issues are. I've never been happy with the way I look. I'm not ugly by any means, but I'm not 'handsome' either. But a lot of the time (maybe 50%?) I see my reflection and know its not me. Now that I know what's going on in my own head, I can more easily identify what's happening at those times. It's occurring when I'm my most feminine. And now it makes sense. Of course my reflection isn't me at those times because I present myself socially as male.
I might talk more about that dynamic in a stand alone post, but for now I've been dealing with being Queer. I'm happy to know this about myself and at the same time frustrated that I can't just fully live out loud everywhere and all the time.
I kind of went wild financially. I bought a new monitor (a $1000 48 inch OLED TV), a new computer, and just recently a set of $500 speakers. I bought a laptop for a traveling class that I never ended up really using. And while I did return the laptop, I just put the money down on a more expensive folding phone (that I love by the way!). And the fun is going to spread right into 2023 as the tires on Tiffany are worn enough that they'll likely need to be changed after this winter. If they make it through the winter. My student loans have been on the COVID hold for this entire time which is one of the reasons I had extra money for these things. I'm going to get $20,000 of my loans forgiven thanks to President Biden's plan, but overall that won't matter as this year I'll be at 10 years of payments meaning I should be able to have ALL of my student loans forgiven due to public service. Thank you State employment! Oh, and I actually JUST made the last payment on Mom's Escape.
While I'm not exactly painting this very well, this was just a bad year for me. It felt like it was February well into July and then felt like it was July well into November. And it still feels like it's November right now. I'm going to have a hellofa time writing out 2023. I guess I'll just get into the questions. Remember, last year I dumped a bunch of them. I'm keeping the numbers of the questions the same, but you'll obviously see quite a few numbers missing. That's why.
1.What did you do in 2022 that you'd never done before?
I've done job changes before, but I always started out on the bottom rung. I was the new nurse. I was the new nurse at the next facility. I was the new manager. Well, this year I changed jobs and came in as the experienced Nurse Manager. It was solely that experience that they valued as I changed from Corrections to Health and Human Services. And while I do hate the job, I have some validation that I'm a good Nurse Manager. The nurses just fell into line and accepted me as a manager. As a good manager. I wish I liked the job more so I could care about their opinions.
3.Did anyone you know give birth?
No. I gave this another year, but the people I know are all of an age that having children is over. If I have a child it will come as a surprise and will be mentioned as a major part of the year, so there's no reason to keep having this question.
4.Did anyone you know die?
No family members or close friends died. But several friends of friends or family of close friends died. Nothing that affected me directly, but it felt like death was a part of this year from beginning to end.
6.What would you like to have in 2023 that you lacked in 2022?
Job clarity. I want to like my job again. I'm not looking for that pure joy I had as a new nurse, but I don't want to hate my job. Six months of hate is long enough. Last year I talked about having more time with my friends, but I honestly believe if I was happier in my job I could make that happen. Wanting that now is just fantasy as I won't make it happen.
7.What date from 2022 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
June 10, 2022. It was my last day at the Prison. I remember thinking of it as a regular work day but everyone around me made it special. I'm fairly sure I cried that day, if not at the prison then on the way home.
8.What was your biggest achievement of the year?
My biggest achievement may sound odd, but it was having a good diabetic year. It feels like every time I'd take a step forward in my diabetic care, I'd follow that up with two steps back. One medication turned into two. Two medications turned into maxing those doses out. That turned into insulin. That turned into a HUGE amount of insulin. That changed into a complete change in the medication regimen and that changed into... success. My Endocrinologist and I upped the Ozempic dose this year but it did just as it was supposed to... it made me even MORE better. I haven't self sabotaged this success so I consider this a big achievement. I'm closer to 'normal' on this front of my life than I have been since considering that I may be diabetic way back in the early 2000s.
9.What was your biggest failure?
Changing the job. I've been clear above why that is. That might be my biggest failure of my entire nursing career.
10.Were you seriously ill during 2022?
No seriously ill in the way I think about it. I didn't have to seek out emergency care. I didn't have to go to the hospital. I didn't require a surgery. I did have COVID twice which is still scary, and I have the blood in my stool which scares me when I think of what it could mean, but no I wasn't seriously ill this past year.
11.What was the best thing you bought?
There's quite a few purchases that could qualify here. My new monitor, my new computer, my new speakers, my new phone. They were all great. But if I have to narrow it down to one, I'll go with the monitor. Having a 48" OLED TV as my computer monitor has revolutionized everything about my entertainment consumption. TV and movies look better. I now game in 4K which meant buying a new computer, and that's freaking AMAZING now. It even eventually inspired the new speakers, but I'll talk more about that when I talk about the speakers in an update post.
I know it's being a bit bougie, but I can't recommend getting an OLED with any more enthusiasm. It's truly a game changer. It's better than going from standard def to HD, it's better than going from CRT to flat panels, it's better than standard to HDR. It's just a night and day difference. There's before OLED and then there's after. After is MUCH better.
12.Whose behavior merited celebration?
The people of my home state of Michigan. It's not that we voted in more Democrats as I try to NOT be about a single political party. It's not even that they went more liberal on most things. No, they decided en masse to NOT vote for stupid. The governor, attorney general, secretary of state, most of the state congress members, and many of the federal congress members all came down to a choice between a democrat and a republican that thought the last election was rigged and promised to prosecute their political opponent even though they had no evidence of any wrongdoing. The republican running for secretary of state was actually suing the state to prevent mail in ballots for the districts around Detroit. They didn't even think of overseas military members and tried to eek out an exception for them. Understand, there was NO evidence of wrongdoing and this wasn't the case trying to prove it... they were just suing to stop the process because "reasons". The case was thrown out for obvious reasons, but that person was running for the office that RUNS ELECTIONS!
So my fellow Michiganders stood up and did the right thing. We also voted to put the rights to an abortion in the state's constitution. I like that. I like it a lot!
13.Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Mine. Leaving the job screwed my work mates and ended up screwing me. I was looking at short term gain and let that blind me. I was stupid and am now paying the price.
14.Where did most of your money go?
It's easy to say Tiffany's payments as my car has been my biggest monthly payment for years and years. But if I forego that, I'd say most of my money went to the new computer. It's not only expensive, I gave my old computer to my nephew so I didn't get the bounce back in cash from that. Add in the monitor and the speakers and I put about $6000 into computer equipment this past year.
15.What did you get excited about?
Getting a new job. God, if I could just go back in time and scream at the 'me' that made that call. But I WAS excited at the time.
16.What songs will always remind you of 2022?
I recently watched 'I Am Legend', the movie from 2009 with Will Smith. It's a fine movie, better than most, but I was surprised at the music. I don't remember thinking anything about the music, but it was really really emotive and good. It might have hit a little closer to home because I name everything in my life 'Legend'. My phone is named 'Legendary Fold 4', my computer is 'Legendary NZXT', most of my Google Home items are 'Legendary TV' or 'Legend Google Home' or 'Legendary Camera'. So the fact that the music from a movie called 'Legend' hit me hard was amplified.
This is specifically the song from the soundtrack that gets me. Specifically the fist minute and forty five seconds:
17.Compared to this time last year, are you:
- Sadder/Happier?
- Sadder
- Thinner/Fatter?
- About the same? Maybe a bit thinner.
- Richer/Poorer?
- I got a raise so I'm making more money, but I spent more money this past year so... poorer?
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