2022 End-of-Year Goals Check-In
When I was still going to twice-weekly mass but before I got glasses, I used to see the candles around the altar of the National Shrine of the Little Flower Church as hazy white halos.
My nearsightedness blurred the candle’s flames until they looked like the Holy Spirit in a Rembrandt painting: orbs of diffused buttery light pulsing against the darkness.
They felt decidedly holy. The little balls of bright floated atop fat white candles dotted around the marble slab, giving the whole proceedings a touch of the divine.
Then I got glasses.
The wiry black frames — so ugly I was happy to lose them somewhere at school weeks after getting them and less than happy when my mother insisted on coming with me one afternoon and scouring my classrooms for them, eventually finding them, dusty and deserted, under a bookshelf on Mr. Jones’ linoleum floor — threw everything into sharp relief.
Relief: a word that feels like a sigh. That feels exactly like what it means. “A feeling of relaxation and reassurance following release from anxiety or distress.” It begs an exhale.
But relief holds a second meaning that diverts from the first. In art, relief is a kind of sculpture where the carved pieces stand out from a background of the same material. It comes from the Latin for “to raise.” It is not gentle alleviation, but a careful building-up, a meticulous hacking-away.
Relief’s duality is exactly what looking at the church candles with glasses on felt like.
I’d gone from two-dimensional flatness, simple and magic, into a less-mystical three-dimensional form. The halos disappeared, replaced by wavering licks of clearly-defined flame. The nubs of light and the tapering wick that sustained it. The first time I saw it, sitting on a dark wooden pew whose grain had gone soft from hundreds of schoolkids shuffling in and out in stiff polyester uniforms, I thought God had gone from the ceremony.
The flame had become a little less magical and a little more knowable.
2022 felt like that.
This last year, I’ve learned to see the world for what it is, not what my most romantic interpretation of it is. I’ve stripped out some comforting beliefs and looked carefully at what held them up. Sometimes I’ve wanted to take the glasses off and have everything retreat into hazy two-dimensionality again — into a comforting semi-darkness where I wasn’t cognizant of what was happening and how unsustainable it was to ignore it — but I haven’t. Glasses are the tools I need to see.
The better I can see, the better I can render.
Render: another delicious word. Evocative. I’m reading Barkskins right now, a 700-page warning against not thinking ahead, and its axmen, working their way across the American continent chopping down pine forests, regularly render animal fat at their campsites. They drip it onto pans and fry slices of moose heart in it. But render, too, has an artistic meaning. “To represent or depict.”
2022 was a year of getting new tools and learning to use them. Here, for my annual end-of-year come-to-(a now secular)-Jesus moment, I’m using those tools on this chunk of time and rendering it into truth. Cheers to the process.
Cherish and invest in community + intimacy.
- Find a long-term, in-person community again, and my own space within it. How? Move to Valencia, I hope, and plug into the scene there. Build a group of friends and have a home base from which to explore. Find an apartment and invest in making it feel like home. Host people often.
A win that makes the sound a smile does: sticky and sure.
Valencia is home. There are many people here that I love. Some of them will be here for a while. Others for a season. That matters less than I thought it might.
I was right about this bet. This city. About how good it would feel to open my door and welcome my people over the threshold. To have art I love hanging on the walls and books I love slowly multiplying on the shelves and friends I love sleeping in the guest room. This was and is a chapter of life for hosting, for stocked pantries, for planning things many months out, for hugging whole-heartedly. It feels right.
- Show up for my loved ones and bring them together. How? Say yes to things. Be a good friend, and by good I mean honest, dependable, generous, and kind. Go to Katie’s wedding in August, and plan a US trip around it to see other loved ones. Plan an event for my birthday in August in Spain. Spend two weeks with Anna in Italy. Regularly attend and throw other events: dinner parties, game nights, art classes.
A win. I didn’t do a third-quarter update because I fell victim to the classic blunder of having a quick menty b as the year somersaulted into fall.
But if I had, I would’ve counted the U.S. trip as a win, despite it being more about people being generous and kind to me than me to them. (Though I have loved being reminded by Camilla that even on my worst day, I am still a delight to be around. I think maybe let’s put that on my memorial bench?)
And if the U.S. trip was a win, the birthday gathering that immediately followed it was a triumph, a blowout, an argument in favor of the mercy rules of Little League baseball. I’ve never felt so filled. So loved. So lucky. The bringing together of those loved ones? Turns out I’m quite good at it. Turns out they’re the fucking greatest.
I did not spend two weeks in Italy. Not yet. I’ll get to see Anna at least twice this year, though, and at least once in her home country. And I had a different kind of two-week break, an unexpected one, in the French countryside, where I wrote and was read to and cried by a stream. A lesson for next year: planning and not-planning, both valid.
- Improve my Spanish and be able to make and maintain relationships in it. How? Above all, move to a Spanish-speaking space and live my daily life at least partially in that language. In addition, read at least five books in Spanish this year and build at least two all-Spanish friendships.
Mmm. This is a maybe. I did move to Spain, and I do speak Spanish every day — with my volleyball coach, my doorman, the people at the grocery store downstairs and the café across the street and the library down the block — but I did not read five entire books in Spanish (three and a half).
I do have two close friends I speak to entirely in Spanish. I cherish them.
But I just found myself in a situation where speaking Spanish in a way that conveyed my entire personality would’ve been extremely useful and I couldn’t manage it.
This will be a forever goal. Being here is helpful for its eventual completion, if not sufficient.
- Keep up with my virtual creative communities and learn with them. How? Participate enthusiastically in English-language book club (LSBC) and writers’ group (The Light Brigade) and successfully manage Spanish-language book club (Las Que Leen) each month. Evaluate creating / joining an in-person creative group once I have my footing.
This ends as a win, but a complicated one.
LQL hobbled to the finish line this year, partially because of the hiatus that my reading ability went on a few months ago. It brings me joy, though, and I’m looking forward to keeping it going in 2023. LSBC crawled off into the woods to die (or maybe just rest, we’ll send a search party out in a few months). TLB, though, continues to shine brightly, and we’re getting together next year to write together in a cabin, which floors me.
I did join an in-person Valencia book club and two art classes. I mused. I found a coworking space I love and a lot of wonderful, creative people who love it, too. I didn’t find creative community in the exact way I set out to at the beginning of 2022, but I found it nonetheless.
- Be in love. How? Stay optimistic. Put myself out there. Be open and brave.
Ahh. This was a win for 2022. I’m glad to have experienced it. Ow but wow.
Take care of me.
- Move my body often. How? Be outside for at least an hour a day when weather permits. Hit an average of 10,000 steps/day or more. Be in the ocean every month. When I’m in one place, find classes—dance, Pilates, lifting, whatever—that I like and do them regularly.
Mhmm. Yes, yes, yes, a win. Movement is a salve. The outdoors is a savior. Walking, running, lifting, swimming, playing volleyball — these things have made me feel alive and grateful. Hopeful and capable. Angry, safely.
And the monthly ocean dips are going strong, too. I did the December one with Katie by my side — helpfully holding my clothes so I could shimmy back into them immediately upon scampering out of the cool water — and am looking forward to January’s.
- Enforce my boundaries. How? Don’t put myself in situations where I can’t take care of myself, or where I will be treated in ways that make me physically and emotionally uncomfortable. Prioritize relationships based on who respects them. Say “no” more often.
This is a win. I have made many hard choices in line with this goal this year. It feels like the clearest example of pushing the glasses up my nose and really seeing. Caitlin would say I am building up trust in myself, and I love her for that reminder.
- Eat things I love but in a balanced way. How? Cook for myself at least half the time. Don’t live in extremes of three weeks eating on the road and then a week of penance afterwards. Bring more balance into my day-to-day.
A win, I think. I didn’t cook much in the third quarter at all, then galloped into the fourth with stews that stained my immersion blender turmeric-tan and trays and trays of Christmas-y baked goods. Not quite the week-in-week-out balance I’d visualized at the beginning of the year. But I do eat what I love, and I do cook often, and I do like being in the kitchen with vegetables and Frosted Flakes.
Enjoy current freedom and optimize for future freedom.
- Make enough money to live comfortably wherever I want, including some portion of the year in New York City, and to be saving to buy a place of my own in the future. How? Gross 200k in my business this year, successfully deal with the massive and massively complicated EU / US tax burdens to come with it, and save half or more of what’s left post-tax.
Hmm. This is a…fail, I think. While I did hit my gross goal (fun!), the tax situation is TBD and I definitely haven’t saved half of my profits. I have saved some, and I’m in good shape even with very strict standards on what good shape means (an 18-month emergency fund, or maybe 24-month, if I rent less villas?). But based on what I set out to do in 2022, I did not save enough money.
- Better manage my money. How? Have enough net worth to justify and pay for a financial advisor by the end of the year who can help me with some of the bigger decisions. Clean up my money habits by going back to daily tracking of spending + bimonthly review of trends.
A fail. I didn’t hit the magic little net worth number I had in the back of my mind. I don’t think I can justify the expense of a financial advisor. I haven’t tracked daily spending in months. And I don’t care.
My relationship with money has changed a lot this year. I continue to think its most useful function is as a way to guarantee independence and freedom, but I find myself a lot less conservative about spending it than I used to be. I’m less fearful I won’t find my way into more of it. I’m less interested in amassing resources and more interested in using them well and fully while I have the opportunity to.
A reminder to myself: the overarching goal for this series of sub-goals contains the words enjoy current freedom, which I’ve definitely done.
- Solidify my business. How? Exceed expectations on my current contracts and build a pipeline of 2-3 future ones. Experiment with passive income when possible and aligned with my values. Hone my product offering into the things I really like to do, and say no to opportunities that aren’t on that list.
A fail. I did well on serving current clients, and figuring out what I like to do, and not well on building a systematic pipeline or a passive product.
- Take real time off. How? Take at least four weeks of pure vacation, no work being done. If that means disrupting my average weekly hours worked, fine, but have more stretches of time off.
A big, fat win. Egypt. Adult Christmas Break. Many, many long weekends in Valencia with visitors and friends. The luxury of time spent in leisure. In rest. Lately I’ve been extra conscious of how valuable that is — and how necessary. My body has needed more quiet these last few weeks. My feelings have needed space this last year. I want to keep up this relationship with productivity, work, and availability in 2023.
Appreciate and pursue creativity.
- Finish a big project in a way that builds towards my goal of producing something. How? I’ll give myself options here: I want to have completed a screenplay, published a long project in a reputable outlet, or drafted a book proposal.
A fail. Just ow. The screenplay hasn’t been touched. The book proposal has been briefly outlined, but not fleshed out. And long product published? Ha!
- Write regularly. How? Six new essays, written and published (and sent to subscribers!). At least one in an outlet I respect that’s not this blog.
This is a win. The birth of Ow But Wow, for which I’ve published five of six planned essays, helped. I wrote about endings for Kath Meets World and politics for a non-KMW outlet. One op-ed isn’t much but it does mean this goal is completed.
- Read widely and regularly. How? Let’s go for a minimum of 5 books/month.
A win, though I read almost nothing for six weeks and freaked myself out thinking that I never would again. (Ha.) I’m slightly below my monthly average, but still hit this goal for 2022.
Going & glowing
Let me pick back up my tools metaphor and build it into a conclusion.
2022 was a year of finding home. In it, I:
- left New York (again),
- moved to Spain,
- found and set up my flat,
- built community,
- loved and lost,
- connected with my body,
- traveled away from Valencia and beat back a path to it,
- found a safe space on the page (again),
- and set boundaries.
- I also I asked for a lot of help.
I sprawl here on my couch, stained with wine and dotted with fuzz from my favorite slate-blue blanket, having just written to my landlord to ask if I can resign my lease.
I’m thinking about 2023.
If 2022 was a year of finding home, I want this next year to be a time of appreciating it. I want to slow down. To cherish what I can see from my new vantage point without knowing how I’m going to find the next one — but trusting that I will.
More on that in my 2023 goals.
For now, thanks for following along.