Retiring My 2012 Planner

Or, Looking Back Makes Me Tired

May you live in interesting times.

 - (reputed) Chinese curse

Partly because it's who I am and how I think--and, largely, because this forum is open for public viewing and I want to retain my pseudonymity--the majority of my posts are about ideas and issues, books I've read and other people's works I've consumed, rather than personal events in my life.  But there are exceptions, of course, and sometimes I'll reveal things about myself, write about an experience I've had or something I'm going through.  And the past few years I've--surprisingly, to me--fallen into the habit of writing some form of New Year's reflection.  I don't think I can look ahead to 2013, though, until I've taken a moment to send off 2012 since it was a much more eventful year than most.

Counselors and psychologists will sometimes refer to "life event stress" or "life change scales," where they assign stress point values to major life events.  It doesn't matter if the events themselves are positive or negative, happy or sad, they still add accumulated stress and can lead to negative mental and physical health consequences if too many of them pile up in too short a time period.  In the course of a few short days early in 2012, I think I scored most of the points I should have been allowed for one year to stay in a healthy, unstressed range.  Though that series of events was the biggest accumulation of the year, other things happened after that (and some had already happened before).  It's been a very eventful year, and I've been able to tell; I still have trouble motivating myself to do much of anything with my free time when it comes along, and I'm having trouble getting out of "all or nothing" mode with my energy and activity levels.

See more from Montana State University.

To summarize briefly, then,

In 2012 . . . 

• My dad died after a battle with Myelofibrosis and Leukemia
• A few days after I had a rushed wedding in his ICU room
• While my Mom was in her own ICU room next door
• And my siblings and I have helped her with her chronic health conditions since
• My new spouse and I bought a new house
• And moved into it (my second move in a six-month period)
• We planned, organized, and hosted a wedding celebration and reception in our new backyard a few months later
• Followed by major travel for our week-long honeymoon
• We adopted three dogs (that had been hers before her divorce)
• We traveled for a rare extended-family reunion that lasted a number of days
• I worked hard enough to score highly on my annual appraisal
• She sometimes worked 50-60 hour weeks due to staff vacancies and other issues
• My acid reflux has gotten worse and I finally had my allergies officially diagnosed and started injection treatments
• She had her health issues
• And the dogs had theirs
• My exercise habit has waned dramatically and my fitness level has dropped accordingly
• Her "second mom" died
• My grandma died

I didn't have a decent suit at the start of 2012 and hadn't had any major events where I needed one for a few years; but I bought one at the start of this year and used it, I think, five times.  While too much of it was joyful for me to say as a package it was a bad year, I'm ready to move on from 2012.

And I'm ready for a much less eventful, slower, more mundane, more energized, and healthier 2013