I cannot believe we’re into November already. This time last year, Justin kept saying that he just needed to get out of 2020, that 2021 would be better. It’s definitely been different, and I guess a little better in some ways. In other ways, I feel like 2020 has just dragged on. And on. As the year starts to wind down and we move into the holiday season, a time of year that’s busy and stressful all in its own right, I want to try my best to be positive, focus on the good things that have come to pass and the good things that are (hopefully) on their way.
We don’t yet know what we’re doing for the holidays. The weather’s getting cooler finally, so we can’t celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas or the New Year outdoors. The bulk of our adult family members are vaccinated, but there’s a holdout or two here or there. My niece’s half siblings are both vaccinated, but my niece and all of Justin’s nieces and nephews are too young. (Hopefully that changes in the next week or two for the bulk of them though.) COVID’s not as front and center as it has been, but anyone that says it isn’t still there, it isn’t still affecting our lives and our decisions, is living in denial.
Since we completed a remodel of our dining room back in 2014, we’ve hosted my family +/- members of Justin’s family and/or some random stragglers my family has picked up along the way every year except 2017 (when our dining room was also our pseudo kitchen) and 2020 (for what should be obvious reasons). We enjoy doing it. We like cooking the Thanksgiving meal and seeing everyone come together and enjoy it. That first one was Rookie’s first year with us. He and Flint broke the door on our entertainment center hours before guests were scheduled to arrive. In 2018, we hadn’t sorted out Magic’s incontinence problem yet, and excitement tends to make it worse. In addition to her, my sister had adopted a young adult pittie from the shelter a few weeks prior to the holiday, so Mack was still adjusting to his family and the expectations associated with home life. He came over with them, drank loads of water, and peed all over the mat by my front door and also the guest bed in my house (which I didn’t discover for days; I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where the urine smell was coming from. I also don’t think I ever told my sister that he did that…). Every year, I practically have to yell at my uncle to NOT feed the dogs from the table, but sure enough, they’re always at his side, being slipped handouts throughout all of dinner.
Justin and I used to spend Christmas day separately for years. Sometimes, we’d spend Christmas Eve together, depending on whether or not I had to work and what day of the week it fell on. In 2017, we knew it would be Flint’s last one with us, and neither one of us wanted to miss a second of the holiday with our best guy. By then, both of Justin’s brothers had children, so a lot of the holiday traditions that didn’t interest me (all day/multi-day Risk, anyone?) were in the past anyway. Last year, we dropped off gifts for Justin’s family the weekend before the holiday and small ornaments I had purchased for my family on Christmas morning. We took Rook and Magic hiking on some trails that were new to us, enjoying some snow flurries and Magic’s first deer sighting. It was quiet, peaceful and less chaotic than the holidays usually are, even though we missed our families.
Again, I don’t know if this year’s holidays will be exactly “normal,” but I hope they’re closer to it. I’m glad that since this time last year, vaccines did make it to market. I’m glad that, so far, our families have avoided COVID infections and all of the possible complications associated with the disease. I’m glad that we were able to go to Glacier NP in June and to Vermont in September. I’m so grateful for the chance to travel to first South Carolina and then South Dakota last month to visit some of my dearest, far-flung friends. I’m happy that another close friend and her husband were able to celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary with their friends and family in September. I’m glad for my nieces and nephews that they can be in a classroom among their friends this year, even if there’s a low-level worry about COVID and its possible spread among unvaccinated kids. I’m thankful that Justin and I are both employed with good pay and good benefits, and that in the past year, I’ve really made a dent in my student loans, even if that’s about where my gratitude towards work currently extends.
At this point, there are signs that at least parts of life are better than they were. In other areas, there’s a lot of talk, but not so many solutions yet. I can only hope that things continue to improve and inch closer to something like a “normal” life. I hope that all of the angry people out there can get their emotions under control and that all of exceptionally entitled jerks I seem to continually cross paths with re-learn the importance of a polite society. I can’t control anyone else, so I’ll just keep trying my best to look to promises of more time with friends and family, more hiking and travels and continuing to pay off my debt and figuring out a good balance of veterinary medicine, other interests and life that makes me happy and fulfilled.
I don’t know that this is at all where I intended this post to go, but here we are. To squeezing joy out of the end of 2021 and entering 2022 with good thoughts on our minds.
“As we struggle with shopping lists and invitations, compounded by December’s bad weather, it is good to be reminded that there are people in our lives who are worth this aggravation, and people to whom we are worth the same.” ~ Donald E. Westlake
