2021: Year in Review

I’m writing this on the afternoon of January 6, 2022. I am wearing a blue hoodie and fuzzy socks. The sky is dove gray and thick with the threat of snow—the first of this winter and this year.

I love snow. I love the smell of it and the cold of it and the coziness of it. I love how it blankets the earth and dims all those natural sounds I take for granted or block out with way too much TV. I love how it adds some extra crunch to boot steps and how it makes everything glow purple in the moonlight and how it takes an ordinary hoodie and an ordinary pair of sweatpants and some ordinary, nothing special fuzzy socks and makes them extra toasty warm. 

It’s 2022. And I’m trying to be more present this year. 

I struggled with being present in 2021. I spent most of the year in my head, looking toward the future or raging at the past, and never really being in the moment. And because of that, 2021, for me, is one of those strange gap years that doesn’t really seem to exist. 

I mean, it’s there, on paper. 

Like a planner that was used for a while, then forgotten about entirely, and then picked up again sometime later. 

It’s a gap punctuated with blank pages and To Do lists that never got done, goals I never really remember wanting in the first place, and things I wish I wish I had accomplished but just, you know, didn’t. 

Without admonishing myself too much, I want to be more mindful moving forward.

So what did I do last year?

Well, for starters:

I quit my toxic AF job in February.

It was a decision I made on a whim and for the life of me could not talk myself out of. 

Around this time last year, after a Zoom Christmas/New Year’s get together with some of my favorite people, one such favorite person took me aside and slapped me with some very blunt but true words.  He asked:

“Where did you go? Where did you go? When did you start believing [working your toxic job] was the most you could aspire to?”

Ouch.

His words stuck with me, so I took them to my therapist. And by the end of our session, I knew I had to go. 

Because I knew my bully boss was always going to be a bully. The sexism and misogyny was never going to get better. The FMLA retaliation and refusal to comply with ADA accommodations was never going to go away. HR was never going to do anything but collude with those same managers whom they admitted were in the wrong. 

And no one in my department was ever going to stand up for me or for themselves. They were too afraid of losing their jobs, their pensions, their next promotion.

They were afraid of ending up like me. Of ending up like all the women who came before me.

I choked on this for a while, I admit. It was a recurring theme in 2021—this intense frustration I feel when I have someone’s back but they don’t have mine. I get that it’s illogical, that not everyone is as comfortable as I am with what they call confrontation and what I call doing what’s right. But I waffled back and forth for a long time—between desperately wanting to help those who are now in the position I was then, and wanting to sit back and watch as the consequences of their own cowardice leeched every last drop of joy from their souls.

In the end, being free won out over being “right.” I turned in my notice (the best feeling ever), took a week’s vacation, laughed with my therapist over the fact that my bully boss tried to terminate me for resigning while I was on vacation, and napped. A lot.

It was a few weeks before it dawned on me that I would never receive another email from a superior calling me an idiot, or implying that I was somehow inferior because of my gender, my intelligence, my chronic illness, my rigid adherence to compliance standards, or be harassed because I wouldn't bully whomever they wanted bullied that day. When it did, I cried.

(And before you say it: yes, I know I could have sued. Some say I should have sued. 

(The attorney I consulted with would be included in that “some.”) 

But ultimately, as angry and hurt as I was, and as much as I still believe Something™ should have been done about how people, especially women and the disabled, were treated in that department, it would have compelled my co-workers to either lie and save their jobs or tell the truth and lose them (and possibly their retirement, their pension, their livelihood). 

I didn’t want them to have to deal with that. So I backed out. 

Yeah, I'm a softie.) 

Anyway, onto happier things!

I started my own business!

Remember that friend who was like, “Hey, where are you?” 

Well, that conversation ended with us collaborating on a consulting project. 

That consulting project led to another consulting project.

And, well, you see where this is going. 

Now we work with small businesses and boutique brands to create authentic, human-first front-end and back-end experiences through copy, marketing, social media engagement, and process management. 

I won’t lie—this is not one of those stories where it became an instant seven-figure a year business. Far from it—I took a massive pay cut to be able to do something I love.

But you know what? No one is emailing 2 minutes after my sign-in time asking me why I’m an idiot, or telling the department trainer to tell everyone I was fired, so in my book, it’s a win.

I also get to work from home—or from Starbucks, or from bed, or from the hospital—when I need to.

Which is good, because:

My health is still something I need to take very seriously.

The good news: 

• My bloodwork is looking really good one year after looking really scary.
  
  
• I took a month off between leaving the credit union and working with Nolan, which I really needed, since I had originally returned to work a month early, and I wasn’t yet up to sitting upright or wearing pants.
  
  
• I get a little bit stronger every day!

The bad news:

• Auto-immune diseases are nasty little jerks, and all these surgeries have aggravated mine to the point where it’s now eating my organs. So that’s fun.
  
  
• I found out this summer I have both Lyme and Celiac disease. I have been gluten-free now for almost seven months and I still miss pasta every day. Every. Single. Day.
  
  
• I’m. Still. So. Tired.
  
  
• The brain fog is like….what.

But believe it or not:

Yes, I’m still writing books!

OK, if you’re Melanie, my agent, and you haven’t seen anything from me in a year, you probably don’t believe this. But it’s true.

Only this year, I’m not really focused on publishing anything.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’d love to. That would be great. Never going to turn that down. Ever. Please give me a moderate sum of money to write a whole lot of books.

But…after four years of workplace burnout, three years of health issues, two years of pandemic, and a year of just staggering around like a drunk bear, I would really like to hone in on and learn to enjoy the act of daily writing again. Because the joy isn’t in the publishing. It was never in the publishing. It’s in the doing, and I really need to get back to the daily act of doing.

Not just with writing, but across the board.

Last year’s Word of the Year was Imperfection. It was a hard word. A word I had to remind myself of daily (and still do). 

But:

I stopped waiting for a nonexistent right time and imperfectly quit a job that was keeping me attached to very unhappy, purposefully damaging people.

I stopped waiting for a nonexistent right time and imperfectly started a business.

I stopped waiting for a nonexistent right time and imperfectly went back to school.

I stopped waiting for a nonexistent right time and imperfectly advocated for myself and my health.

I stopped waiting. And I imperfectly did.

2022 Word of the Year

I toyed with a bunch of words for 2022. Among them: Empower, Present, Mindfulness, Now.

And those are definitely energies I want to bring into 2022!

But the word I settled on was:

Fortitude: Courage in the face of adversity.

Not exactly an inspiring word, I guess, but it feels right. Like an extension last year’s “stop waiting and imperfectly do” message.

The world is never going to be a perfect place. I am probably never going to be in perfect health. There is never going to be a perfect day where everything fits perfectly.

So for me, Fortitude means: showing up for the daily do even when you feel like a hot mess or when the world is on fire or a cat is sick or the power is out or the blood work is questionable or your people have let you down.

Stop waiting. Show up. Have the courage to face the imperfect now. And just relax and enjoy the ride.

2021 Stats

Words Written: 166,512

Books finished: 0

Books published: 0

# of days written: 243

Longest writing streak: 72 days

Average words per day: 698

Average minutes per day: 63 

Most productive days: Mondays and Saturdays

Least productive days: Thursdays and Sundays

2020: Year in Review

Last year, when I did one of these posts, I promised myself I would do monthly recaps in a Word document to make it easier to cobble things together. 2018 and 2019 had been such weird transition years that I thought for sure I would Do Better ^TM in 2020, and LOL am I laughing or crying, because I can’t tell anymore, it all feels the same when you’re dead inside. 

 I KID. I KID. 

 But no, really. 

 Oh, 2020. The year that lasted 84 years and 19 minutes, all at the same time. 

 Here’s a breakdown of the year from this angle: 

 I started working from home. 

 2019 was really rough on me, work-wise. My day job was overwhelming and stressful and...honestly just a really just a very unhealthy place. My mental health suffered from it. My physical health suffered from it. My work/life balance was non-existent, and crying—no, not crying, openly bawling—at my desk was a daily occurrence. I remember telling a friend this time last year that I felt as though I was being held hostage, because thirty minutes after I was scheduled to leave, I was still being handed things to do. 

 And this was not a once in a while thing, either. This was every day. 

 Then the pandemic happened, and I was allowed the opportunity to work from home. 

 And I love it. 

 I love having my own space and being able to work in an environment that is conducive to how I work best. I like that I can get more done without wasting time on worrying about what I’m going to wear (yoga pants, hell yeah) or if traffic is going to be backed up or if it’s snowing. I like that I don’t feel as though someone is breathing down my neck all the damn time. I like that if I have a headache, I can take a shot and lower the lights. 

 I won’t lie: the pandemic hit me hard, and there are still lots of things about my job that need to be addressed in 2021. But being able to work from home for most of the year, even if I still cry about work from time to time, is probably the only reason I’m not trending on TikTok for “woman quits job via carpool karaoke mic.” 

What’s in store for 2021: As much as I love the function of my job, it’s become clear that the negative parts of it—the overwork, overwhelm, stress, and demoralization—aren’t going to change. So I would like to find something in 2021 that doesn’t make me cry and doesn’t make me sick and doesn’t undermine me as an employee or undervalue me as a person. It’s sad and it’s scary, but it’s time. 

 I had, like, a lot of surgeries. 

 OK, so maybe not, like, a lot of surgeries. But more than one, which is big to me, since before 2020, I’d had zero surgeries ever in my life. 

 My 2020 Word of the Year was Heal. I don’t think I talked about it a lot, because I kind of thought it was a boring word. Heal to me means slow down, rest, take care of your self, and I’m more of a do All The Things!, conquer the world type of person. 

 Problem was, I’d burned myself out doing All The Things! and conquering the world, so in 2020, my body had enough and flipped me off. In the end, I had six biopsies, underwent 4 surgeries, lost two organs, and spent a cumulative total of 11 days in ICU (spread over 3 visits). 

 It’s easy to make light of it now that I’m on the other side of it, but I think I have finally learned to put myself first and take my health seriously. I have also learned how important it is to advocate for myself and make sure others—doctors, friends, family, co-workers, insurance claims adjusters—take my health (and my time and my boundaries) seriously, too. There is a difference between “team player” and “self-sacrificing.” 

What’s in store for 2021: I’m already feeling so much better. But I’m not out of the woods yet. I still have a lot of work to do, both in terms of bloodwork numbers and making sure I take time for myself. One habit I would like to adopt in 2021 is to make sure I’m taking my medications as prescribed. Such a small thing, but I am so bad at it. 

 8,760 hours. 

 A big revelation I had in 2020 was how I relate to time and how that informs my tendency to procrastinate. 

 I have kept excellent writing records for years, and I always work with a daily writing goal in mind. I set goals for both words and minutes, short term and long term. I know the projects I want to work with and what I want to get done. And I know that things come up (like all the health stuff above) and not to count on a 365-day work year. 

This has worked out for me OK in the past. Not great, but not horribly. But I always seemed to hit patches where I had to cram a lot of work into the last few days of a deadline to reach the finish. I’m no expert, but I’m guessing that’s probably not very conducive to cutting stress and achieving work/life balance. 

Then a friend suggested instead of looking at my productivity based on a working hour, I look at my productivity based on the number of hours in a year. The idea is that this will give you a better estimate of how many days it will take you to finish a thing, based on your current rate of working on said thing. 

I like this because when I’m especially stressed or tired, I tend to push things off until later. Say, needing to write 5,000 words in 2 days because I was too tired/stressed/whatever to write 500 words a day for 10 days. 

Now I have a spreadsheet that tells me in plenty of time if I’m struggling to meet a goal and what I need to do to course-correct. And let me tell you, it is so much easier to stomach adding 50 words to your daily goal than 5,000. 

What’s in store for 2021: I won’t lie, I would love to sell a thing in 2021! More than one thing! More than one type of thing! But since that’s out of my hands, I’m going to be more intentional about what I can control. I can control how much I read. I can control how much I scroll Twitter and TikTok. I can control how wisely I use my time and how much attention I pay to the details of craft and language. Books don’t just happen, they are carefully cultivated out of time intentionally spent working on them. And I would really like to free myself up enough that I can write something I love without constantly fearing the person who reads it is going to hate it. 

 A new word for 2021. 

 Imperfection. 

This year of healing has allowed me to see and understand parts of myself that I have ignored for far too long. In a private goal-setting group, I made a comment that every year, I come up with 4-6 areas of life I want to work on, and as I dig deep in these areas, I always find a common theme tying them all together. This year’s common theme is emotional trauma. 

I’ll just say it like it is: there’s a lot of shit that I haven’t dealt with healthily or in some cases at all, and carrying that baggage from relationship to relationship, job to job, book to book, friendship to friendship, is the number one reason why these areas of life need improvement. 

Another harsh truth: I’m in a very unhealthy, abusive relationship with myself. And it’s not entirely my fault; I’m only repeating what I experienced when I was younger. There’s a voice in my head that came from someone else that doesn’t need to be there anymore. Now that I know it’s there and how it is negatively affecting my life, it’s my responsibility to silence it. 

What’s in store for 2021: I want to learn how to be better to myself. Kinder to myself. More compassionate and accepting of myself. I want to learn how to let others struggle with their own bad decisions without stepping in to clean up the mess. I want to learn how to set firm boundaries that protect the time spent pursuing my dreams. I want to know my own worth and refuse to settle for anything less. 

But mostly, I want to learn how to let my best be enough. 

2020 Stats 

Words written: 160,880/150,000 

Books finished: 2 

Books published: 0 

# of days written: 256 

Longest writing streak: 62 days 

Average words per day: 712 

Average minutes per day: 70 

Average words per working hour: 582 

Average words per hour: 18.3 

Most productive days: Sundays and Tuesdays 

Least productive day: Thursday