Personal Reflections On 2023

A year ago today I was in the second day of the worst illness I've had in my life, which lasted at least a full month and had me fully out of commission, in a fever haze for at least a couple of weeks. The doctors could never manage to be more specific than to say that it was a "viral infection" that wasn't COVID, RSV, Step, or any of the other "brand name" viruses that are out there. One of the more minor consequences of that is that I was unable to do much reflecting on the year before and couldn't really carry on little rituals like making new bookmark folders for the new year, making New Year's resolutions, marking my weight on New Year's day in a journal, and getting my personal finances in order and sock drawer as fully matched as possible for the coming year.

This year has the usual rush to finish things that need to be finished before year end, but there is a little more room to put things in order and reflect.

Dominant among the last year's events has been a major structural home repair that a structural engineer diagnosed and proposed some possible solutions for in mid- to late January of this year, and that is likely to be finished a full twelve months and four contractors later, in January of 2024. Construction began in earnest in May, and our home has been in a state of construction chaos more of less continuously since then and the construction part won't be done until early January, the parts that need to be done by contractors anyway. Then, kitchen stuff will have to be put in its new places. The dining room furniture will be returned to the dining room and the temporary folding table we've been using will return to storage. Art can go back up on the walls again. The curtains can go up on the windows they've been removed from for months. Left over construction materials and tools will be put away. Electronic device chargers and carpets can be returned to their regular places. Files and paperwork that we've been keeping in suitcases can go back to their usual homes. The blue painter's tape and protective coverings over floors and countertops will be gone. Our valuable nick knacks, and prescriptions, and nicer alcohol, hidden away to avoid tempting contractors to steal them, can go back to their usual places. We can dust and vacuum and mop and expect our surfaces to stay clean for a reasonable period of time. Our laundry room and finished portions of our basement will be livable again.

We were empty nesters before the pandemic, but lockdown changed that and brought everyone home. Our nest was indefinitely empty again by September of this year. But we are only on the brink of fully appreciating that now with the chaos of home repairs abating soon. Both kids have graduated from college, moved into their own apartments, ended up in serious relationships with long term romantic partners (of whom we approve wholeheartedly), and found good "real" full-time jobs for themselves and their partners now. They have their own health insurance. They do their own taxes. They make and eat their own meals, and pay their own bills. They are both over twenty-one. They both have driver's licenses. They have both started to invest some of their earnings. My daughter and her boyfriend hosted our holiday meals and gatherings this year at her apartment, because our house was still too much of a construction zone for that. We provide some low key guidance, suggestions and support, and we are there as a safety net for them, but they are independent adults now. Our parenting work is mostly a mission accomplished at this point. And yet, we haven't yet stepped into the role of grandparents yet, although that will hopefully come soon enough.

This February, my wife and I will celebrate Valentine's Day together for the 35th consecutive time. Six months later we will celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary, something else we've always done something to observe, and will probably go to some tropical island sometime in the vicinity of that anniversary to commemorate it. Four and a half years ago, we were celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary in Greece. It seems like yesterday.

To brag just a little, when I see my peers on Facebook or other social media, or in Christmas cards, I conclude that we've aged very well. Many people assume that my wife is two decades or more younger than she is, she ran her second marathon this spring, and will be running a half marathon with both of our children, her childhood friend's daughter and her daughter's friend, and one of our daughter's boyfriend's parents (possibly with a shorter run by our daughter's likely future brother-in-law) in later February. I may not be quite so fit, put I haven't lost any of my hair, and apart from some gray in my full beard which is a plus when you are a lawyer, my hair is as brown as it was when I was twenty-one and newly engaged to be married.

This past year has brought two family funerals and two weddings. I attended a funeral in Minnesota, and a wedding in Oregon, but the demands of work made the wedding in Ohio, and the funeral in Ohio, where my stepmother represented our branch of the family, impossible to attend.

Since travel resumed as the pandemic has wound down, we've managed to make it to a double birthday party for my inlaws (both in their 80s) in Orange County, the wedding in Oregon, Thanksgiving in Seattle, a marathon at Big Sur, the funeral in Minnesota, a visit to my stepmother and hometown in Ohio, a finishing up a term abroad visit to Ireland, Wales, and England, a college graduation in Rhode Island, and a family visit to Boston. My daughter managed trips to see Taylor Swift and her grandparents in Las Vegas, her boyfriend's family in San Diego, a trip to Grand Cayman to make up for the fact that she didn't get to have a real college graduation ceremony, and a trip with her boyfriend to Portugal. My son managed a spring break trip to Puerto Rico where he also managed to meet up with his paternal aunt and niece, a summer internship in San Francisco's Mission District, a month working at his girlfriend's extended family retreat with her near Lake Tahoe, and while he was abroad (often with his girlfriend who we've now met several times, just as her family has met him) trips to France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Turkey, at least. My in-laws, in addition to dividing their time between winters in Las Vegas and summers near Laguna Beach, and two Thanksgivings with family in Seattle, have managed to visit South Korea, their adopted homeland (they had to flee the North during the Korean War) again after a pandemic imposed interruption of their usual pattern of visits.

This year has included time to read books, time to read Webcomics, time to stream anime (within 24 hours of debuts in Japan) and other movies and TV, time to listen to new music, time to read scientific journal articles in physics, astronomy, genetics, historical linguistics, and archaeology, time to blog, time to volunteer as a precinct organizer for the Democratic Party, time to be a moderator a Politics Stack Exchange, time to participate in discussions at other stack exchange forums, blogs, Facebook, and the Physics Forums, and even the opportunity to see several movies and some concerts in person again. We've been able to enjoy occasional fine (and more casual) dining out, dipped our toes into a couple of Asian-American oriented meet up groups, visited some museums, made many trips passing on things we no longer need to thrift stores and a "buy nothing" facebook group, and enjoyed beers, wines, and liquors that are far from bottom of the barrel at home.

Sometimes work has been intense, and sometimes administrative details of my personal and work life have fallen a little behind as it has gotten hectic. But it wouldn't be true to say that I don't have a fairly decent work-life balance, and have been able to be more connected to my family than many men at their peak working years in late middle age when you are old enough to have the experience to handle big, difficult, and complicated lawsuits and transactions, but not so old that you are easing out of the active practice of law. Many men at my point in their careers work 70-80 hour work weeks, week after week, with little time for anything else, and I'm glad that I'm not among them.