my results for 2023
Jan. 24th, 2024 12:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avreliaAs usual, in December I want to do a proper send off for the year that is ending, with some musing, some results, maybe holiday cookies and crafts, and then I don't.
The holidays started unexpectedly early, yet again, with kids suddenly home for the winter break, and no mood for celebrating anything – yet again. The tree was decorated haphazardly, some cards signed and sent (have anyone gotten them? No idea). Good thing I can still keep celebrating for another week – the great holiday of Old New Year.
Except – celebrating now seems like such a strange idea, belonging to “normal” times. Not the ones we live in.
still, I feel the need to mark the passing of time, and combine the previous twelve months in a single narrative.
It definitely was a year. It passed. I lived.
The main takeaway from the past months was that the time is over. No more time. Sure, one needs to plan for the future, both remote and immediate, but there is no sense in waiting for it to come. Maybe, some time in the future some things will get better, but most likely not, or they will be better in this area, and worse in another one, or they will get better in fifty years and I won’t be able to do much then.
It brought about a wave of sadness upon me, but also prompted me to do little steps in this new understanding. The past several years were strange. I was busy with small kids, then we moved to California and rearranged our life, and as soon as I started making better plans for myself, the pandemic hit, and then the war, and I was stuck immobilized. It was not what I planned, it was not what I wanted from my life. But what I wanted seems so far out of reach – may be it will happen in another universe, in a better timeline.
My age started to weigh more heavily on me. Not that I feel old at my fresh 47, but I do feel that my time is not unlimited any more. The horizon is closer and darker.
Anyway. Here is the list of things accomplished:
- signed for yoga club and went there once a week for most of the year (save for travels)
- traveled to Vancouver – for the first time since I left it twenty years ago – and met with friends
- traveled to Turkey – for the first time ever – and spent time there with my mom and sister.
- started a book club in Russian
- accepted that I will continue to buy books because they spark joy, even if I won’t read them, and my kids won’t read them.
- sold some books I was sure we are not going to read.
- read some books
- made some new plans
- made some new friends
Well. Here I am, looking forward to accomplish more in 2024.
The holidays started unexpectedly early, yet again, with kids suddenly home for the winter break, and no mood for celebrating anything – yet again. The tree was decorated haphazardly, some cards signed and sent (have anyone gotten them? No idea). Good thing I can still keep celebrating for another week – the great holiday of Old New Year.
Except – celebrating now seems like such a strange idea, belonging to “normal” times. Not the ones we live in.
still, I feel the need to mark the passing of time, and combine the previous twelve months in a single narrative.
It definitely was a year. It passed. I lived.
The main takeaway from the past months was that the time is over. No more time. Sure, one needs to plan for the future, both remote and immediate, but there is no sense in waiting for it to come. Maybe, some time in the future some things will get better, but most likely not, or they will be better in this area, and worse in another one, or they will get better in fifty years and I won’t be able to do much then.
It brought about a wave of sadness upon me, but also prompted me to do little steps in this new understanding. The past several years were strange. I was busy with small kids, then we moved to California and rearranged our life, and as soon as I started making better plans for myself, the pandemic hit, and then the war, and I was stuck immobilized. It was not what I planned, it was not what I wanted from my life. But what I wanted seems so far out of reach – may be it will happen in another universe, in a better timeline.
My age started to weigh more heavily on me. Not that I feel old at my fresh 47, but I do feel that my time is not unlimited any more. The horizon is closer and darker.
Anyway. Here is the list of things accomplished:
- signed for yoga club and went there once a week for most of the year (save for travels)
- traveled to Vancouver – for the first time since I left it twenty years ago – and met with friends
- traveled to Turkey – for the first time ever – and spent time there with my mom and sister.
- started a book club in Russian
- accepted that I will continue to buy books because they spark joy, even if I won’t read them, and my kids won’t read them.
- sold some books I was sure we are not going to read.
- read some books
- made some new plans
- made some new friends
Well. Here I am, looking forward to accomplish more in 2024.
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no subject
Date: 2024-02-03 11:05 pm (UTC)accepted that I will continue to buy books because they spark joy, even if I won’t read them, and my kids won’t read them.
that's such a good mantra to keep in mind! (we have so many books that I excitedly bought up to share my childhood favorites with my children, which they never read and at this point never will. And I don't know that I'll reread them either, but it does make me happy that somewhere in our house are "Alya, Klyaksich i bukva Ya" and "Chuchelo" and "Barankin bud' chelovekom" and the like.
no subject
Date: 2024-02-06 05:08 am (UTC)yes, Buffy is forever my favorite show, and I enjoy Firefly. Kind of tired of MCU, as most people, I guess. I am most fannish of the Avatar the Last Airbender for the past five years, since I watched it with my kids. here I mostly complain about me not posting :)
Where in California do you live? I am in East Bay.
I think I am juggling all time the books I want to buy for my kids, the books I have, what we can read together, what we cannot. I am lucky enough to have kids who read a lot, but often not what I want to read with them. Which is normal, of course, but because it takes so much effort to bring books here, it is a bigger deal than it should be... so weird, when i try to look at myself from afar. But also, yes, it is my life. With books I planned to read for the past twenty years, and still hadn't gotten around to.
no subject
Date: 2024-02-06 06:09 am (UTC)I love AtLA! Also watched it with my kids, although longer ago -- it was actually the first canon we consumed together, which makes it quite special. (I introduced them to other things I'm a fan of, including Buffy, and in some cases they first discovered a thing then got me to read/watch it -- I think that was the case with Hunger Games, e.g.) but that was one of the few we picked up together. We quote it A LOT! For a while, the initial letters of "No, Fire Lord Ozai, YOU are not wearing any pants" was even my daughter's password XD
Are you planning to watch the Netflix show as a family also?
I am lucky enough to have kids who read a lot, but often not what I want to read with them.
Same, and I have a feeling that in some cases they choose to read other things because they want to be their own people. I read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy and was trying to get them interested in same, but my daughter refused for ages. She eventually picked up Harry Potter after her younger brother did, and then became a huge fan. And read Good Omens when her friend in high school convinced her to try it, and finally read some Ursula LeGuin with a uni class. And she liked all of them, but of course she's still not taking my book recs... (though, to be fair, I also have not read the Angela Carter book she really loved from her uni class, which I've been promising to read for two years -- so it goes both ways...
My son's tastes are more similar to mine, and we do share some fandoms, but I haven't been able to get him into my favorite series even though I'm pretty sure he would enjoy them. Ah well...
no subject
Date: 2024-02-08 05:11 am (UTC)so looks like we're neighbors :)
Probably in the same FB communities, too. ;)
Are you planning to watch the Netflix show as a family also?
Heh, I am not sure yet! I am curious yet apprehensive.
For the past couple of years I am watching Buffy with my kids. Non binging, and we are currently in the middle of season 3 :)
There is definitely a lot of sharing fannish interests between me and kids (they are 16 and 10 currently), I know I wouldn't have seen or read a lot of cool stuff without them. And yeah, the 16 old one prefers now recommendations of other people. I know, teenagers, all that, but I miss reading together. Even though we still love a lot of the same books.
no subject
Date: 2024-02-09 06:15 am (UTC)Haha, I'm mostly not on Facebook, but my mother (who also lives in SF) keeps me well apprised of the going on in Devchonki Bay Area and Lyubiteli Trader Joe :)
I am curious yet apprehensive.
Same! They seem to be making it with some care, judging by the trailers, but I am apprehensive as well.
I think we also made it to season 3 or maybe 4 with Buffy, before my daughter went off the college and we had to stop (my kids are 22 and 20 now).
I know I wouldn't have seen or read a lot of cool stuff without them
I came to the US when I was still young enough (11) to catch up on a lot of kidlit classics, and my brother was 1 year old, so a lot of other kidlit classics I picked up via HIS childhood (e.g. Shel Silverstein, Animorphs). But I did also pick up some neat things from the kids (and also poked at a lot of mediocre teen dystopias, lol)