three twos, one zero

As I write this, approximately 24 hours remain of the year 2022 in the Pacific timezone. While I don't think it has been, on the aggregate, a great year, it has at least not felt like a nonstop chain of disasters; for me, at least, I am leaving the year feeling better off than when it started, which is something I don't think has been true since . . . 2015? It's been a while.

I do worry that perhaps I'm becoming desensitized to the constant onslaught of bad news, and part of it is that I have in the past several months somewhat stopped following the news as closely as I often do. I don't think this is particularly virtuous, but I do value my mental health and worrying about the ongoing collapse of what people so often call "the American experiment" is not particularly conducive to keeping one's anxiety low. But I am finally understanding that the "experiment" part of that moniker is meant to suggest that it is a fragile thing, and it certainly is, isn't it?

Intermittently over the past week or so, when my thoughts are left to wander, I've found myself experiencing this odd sensation of dread. It isn't really localized, even when I try to pin it down, it's just there, this sensation that something is terribly wrong. While I don't think that means anything, it's instructive, I think, that my reaction to moods such as this is to think of it as a fleeting thing, like a dream, and like a dream it will fade from my mind and thoughts when I can find a distraction. While the aloof, detached thing has its fair share of drawbacks, there is something nice about being able to experience a negative emotion, say "this, too, is ephemeral," and then just . . . let it pass. Moods are like the weather: real, but temporary. They are not you.

We had a week of snow leading up to Christmas, ending with an ice storm like I had never seen here in Seattle and on the mountains in general. The buses here shut down, which I had never seen before; the streets and sidewalks were covered in a glaze of ice that made even walking nearly impossible. And the pass was closed and I was unable to make it home for the holiday. And I am told the weather elsewhere was also bad, and that a vast number of people had flights cancelled (apparently in no small part due to Southwest airlines' bad planning, but also due to weather). Another reminder from Nature that we exist at her sufferance, I suppose.

And that is the nature of winter. It's cold, and it's exhausting, and it's humbling. Winter does not care about your plans. The snow will fall, the ice will come, and sometimes there's nothing you can do but hole up and wait for it to pass. But the longest night of the year is behind us now, the days are getting longer, and already the spring feels like it's in reach.

I hope 2023 will be a good year. I don't know if it will be. It feels like we have been in a winter that has lasted for seven years now. But right now I feel like a thaw is possible, like there really may be a spring in the future, like maybe this does not need to last forever. And New Year's is a time for hopes, for holding onto each other and whispering promises of a brighter tomorrow. So let's end on a hopeful note: happy 2023, friends. Spring will be here sooner than you think.