Bring it on, 2022.

Okay, so I may be a touch pessimistic but I refuse to come here and say “next year can only get better” because I started saying that in 2015 after our suicide attempt then in 2016 I broke that mirror & Robin Williams died (for the 1000th time I’m sorry) and it started the snowball of bad things that turned into the avalanche of death and destruction you are all familiar with. I’m pretty sure, in my narcissistic mind, that I am totally cursed and have accidentally taken the entire globe down with me.

All our daughter wanted for Christmas this year was for us to be together as a family with “nobody sick and dying”. This request came after last year when we were in the thick of Cancer surgeries and her Grandad died. This year we have been hyper focused on getting our mothers house ready for sale after she’d moved into a retirement place and were a tad Scrooge like about the impending Yuletide. So my poor little cherub ordered her own Christmas presents online and then wrapped them and put them under the tree she’d set up one night while I was busy painting.

So, feeling suitably guilty about my neglectful parenting I ordered a ton of good Christmas food online and organised a last minute Christmas family extravaganza and promptly came down with Covid and had to cancel the whole shebang.

She took it well. Too well really because she just sighed that ‘of course something was going to go wrong’ sigh and good naturedly opened the Christmas presents she’d wrapped herself and took selfies with them while I tossed and turned feverishly in bed complaining about everything being crap.

Well 2022 is a mere 12 hours away now, and if my pessimistic legend is true, my assigned 7years of bad luck should be about coming to an end. I’ve already given the rest of my household Covid this week (Merry Christmas) so at least that’s out of the way (for this varient at least).

My New Years resolution was going to be to try and be more Martha Stewart like (preferably excluding jail time) so I decided to bake raspberry muffins with the fresh berries from our garden, but the oven wouldn’t turn on.

After a woe is me meltdown about my “curse” destroying the entire world as we know it, Hubby walked over to the oven pressed something magical and it whirred to life immediately, proving to me that it was not in fact “also fucked like the entire planet” and I was, just maybe, slightly over reacting. He then assured me even if it had of been, life was not about to end because I couldn’t bake a batch of muffins at that exact moment.

He gently suggested that maybe, just maybe, my pessimistic attitude is the real problem here. Then he told me to “breathe” and so I threatened his life and grumbled off to my room.

I mean EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE! Right? So much *insert laundry list of shitty things here* has happened, shouldn’t I be entitled to moan complain and whine all day, every day?

Then one of the wiser parts of us pointed out that maybe we are entitled to be frustrated, annoyed, and to complain, but what exactly is that helping us achieve? It’s certainly not curing our cancer or bringing Robin Williams back to life. Really it’s just slowly driving away the people we care about and then what? We’ll have more to complain about and nobody left to complain to! Except maybe M, but technically it’s her job to listen to us whinge for an hour a week so she signed up for it.. (Love ya M!)

She’s right of course. Yes, it hurts me to say that. So I’ve decided my New Years resolution this year, rather than try to find my inner domestic goddess and drag her kicking and screaming to the kitchen or saying for the 7th year running that I’m going to finish my book (one day), my goal is to try and change my attitude.

Less wallowing and more appreciating. If I at least try to play the positive reframe game, even if bad stuff keeps happening, I should feel a bit better about the little things that go on between crisis’. Catherine wants to learn new sciency things, Ezzy wants to draw more often, V wants to “actually finish” our Mums place, Callie wants “twinkle lights” and Gregory wants to meet a dinosaur. These things actually feel achievable, except maybe Greg’s, but maybe he can play with a lizard or something instead.

So bring it on 2022, nothing shocks us anymore and we’re ready for you! And a massive HAPPY NEW YEAR to you, our dear readers and your loved ones too. May you all have opportunities to cherish the little things that make the world worth living in, laugh at a meme, listen to a great song, admire the stark beauty of a dead tree at sunset. And whatever this year brings you, the highs and lows, may you learn things about yourself that help you to grow as a person.

I’d love hug you all in celebration but I’m infectious as hell and kind of sticky (raspberries), so metaphorical hugs all round.

See you next year!

💜 Kate