Tag Archives Editor’s Letter

First, I would like to wish everybody a better 2023! Completely regardless of how your 2022 was, by the way. The Holidays are a strange period for me, as I don’t celebrate Christmas. I also don’t really feel the “We’re starting anew!”-vibe of the new year, especially not since I’m living on an academic timeline again. What do you mean, the end of the year? I’m not even half way through! For me 2022 was part of the 2021/2022 academic year, which went GREAT. 2022 was also part of the current academic year, which isn’t going so well.

Since the summer, when I was shortly admitted to urgent care because I was physically not doing well, after which they changed up my medications, things have been… not ok. I don’t know if it’s the medication changes, or if it’s the backlash of The Pandemic, but things have been extremely mediocre on all fronts. Between September and December, I twice caught a serious cold that stuck around for more than two weeks each. This resulted in me falling behind with my studies to the extend that I’ll have to repeat the class next year.

Back in the day, I would have literally almost killed myself to try and pass the class anyway, but I’m doing this thing called “Learning from your Experiences”. While I am proud of myself for this progress (and progress it is), it is of course highly demotivating to have to drop out of your first class of the year. I have seriously considered throwing in the towel, especially considering the hell that was my BA degree. Despite dealing with an infection in my jaw (for which – fear not! – I’m being treated), I am going to try and do the full time class in January. If I don’t manage to pass that one either, I’ll reconsider my life plans. For the 8 millionth time in my life. No wonder I’m exhausted.

Writing didn’t happen in 2022. Despite not believing in writer’s block, I’m clearly dealing with writer’s block. Everybody and their grandma knows that I have a difficult relationship with writing. This goes from thinking “Why bother?” to actively wanting to burn everything that has any relation to (my) writing, including my laptop. This is not a new phenomenon, I’ve had this intermittently since my high school newspaper days in 1863, but it resurfaces with a vengeance when I’m not feeling my best. As you’re not supposed to make drastic decisions during a crisis, I will post the December 2022 round up this Friday. Reasonably on time for a change.

Last year, I wished everybody a “Better 2021” and while 2021 was a better year than 2020, it was still, at least for me, not the best year. The main reason it was better dan the year before, was because of the vaccines I got in April and June: from that moment on, I at least didn’t have to live in constant terror anymore.

I also started new studies that (disclaimer: up to now – ed.) seem to be a good fit, which made life more enjoyable and gave me some prospects for the future. While not a banger of a year, I was ok enough to not have “Long December” by the Counting Crows playing in my head on a loop for weeks.

I would like to cautiously optimistically (and freshly boostered) wish you all a better 2022. And 2023. Because why not.

In the meantime, I’ll start publishing here more frequently again, starting with the delayed December round up this Friday.

Usually, I wish people “A happy [insert year here]!” This year however, I’ll leave it at “A better 2021!”. This of course inspired by the countinuous loop of Counting Crows lyrics that has been plaguing me for the last three weeks:

A long December and there’s reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last

While New Year, New You is mostly nonsense every year, this year it’s complete hogwash. We’re still in the middle of a pandemic, and it will take a while for everybody to be vaccinated. Even then it’s still a guess when the world will revert back to “normal” and what that “normal” will look like. Not that I have any hopes that this pandemic will lead to any drastic long lasting universal changes in regards to how we humans treat each other, other animals and the planet we live on.

As we have seen this year, the majority of people are extremely attached to the lifestyle they’re used to and feel zero need to critically (re)consider their ideas and/or the way they live, let alone change anything about them. There are of course underlying societal structures in place with the sole goal of keeping things the way they are, but the lack of willingness to even consider adapting your life a tiny bit for “the greater good” for lack of a better term, was some intense bullshit if you ask me. Compassion, more specifically the lack of it, was also a thing I didn’t expect to be, well, such a thing. I do believe that we’ll eventually mostly go back to how things were “before”. There will of course be changes and certain things will not come back, but I’m afraid that they will mostly be the types of things that were already undervalued and/or subsidized. Let’s hope I’m wrong. And let’s also hope that I don’t have to find inspiration in Counting Crows lyrics next year, because DAMN.

Anyway, happy you’re all still here and a better 2021!