2023 – THE YEAR IN REVIEW

Given that busyness, which you may have seen coming before I did if you read last year’s newsletter, it was perhaps the year of the very necessary date night.  Many weeks ended as a disheveled and languid crawl towards a three-to-four-hour island of escapism in Theresa’s company which, if I am careful to slow down and enjoy, very much serves as a renewal and a reminder of everything I imagined but missed in our early thirties.  Having crossed the parental pond and enjoying it now in our fifties, I think date nights are better than they ever could have been then perhaps for the slightly deeper pockets…y’know?  ‘Man plans and God laughs,’ is the Yiddish saying or my preference, ‘Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.’  Thank you, John Lennon.

This end-of-year newsletter would be a crime if I failed to mention what was perhaps 2023’s best date night, that of June 10^th in Las Vegas.  Driving back from my quasi-annual coastal bike ride, Theresa and I stopped for a night in Vegas to renew our vows at the Graceland Wedding Chapel.  Vow renewal might be argued by some as unnecessary and frivolous, and ten years ago I might have been one to agree, but ours was a great experience and worth every penny.  There are too many memories from the evening to recount here, but slow dancing with Theresa as re-newlyweds to the serenade of a couple of hundred onlooking strangers in a Las Vegas strip dueling piano bar had to be one of the best experiences I’ve ever had.  It was a euphoric evening.   

I would love to be able to tell my readers of the many judo tournaments, the slew of hunting excursions, and many thousands of miles of cycling I knocked out this year.  It is a badge of honor and fun knowing that I am known to some as that older guy who gets off the couch and plays hard, but it is far less true this year than last.  Unlike my 2022 which may have made some of Hemingway’s peacetime years look like a bore, 2023 was a return to the ‘git ‘er done’ and ‘honey do’ chore lists of the sort that seemed to make child rearing years whir. To some extent that return was a reckoning and a lagging effect of the pandemic.  The job too made a summons of its own, and for several months I was consumed by server migrations which had me pulling late nights.  Now in the hangover of the migration, the frenzy at work is still not entirely over.  If you’ve read past newsletters and wondered how Matt gets 5000 miles of cycling in, know that this year he very much did NOT.  It was one of the lowest annual cycling tallies ever (estimating a final 3500-3600 miles with five weeks left in the year).

A wave of breakage I suppose every household north of twenty years experiences reached a level I could no longer ignore, -patch this, paint that, prop up those.  There is also twenty plus years of shi…errr…I mean…‘stuff’ that needs to be sorted, stored, or purged.  I’ve set a one-year goal of forty hours on that, and yes, I do keep track of the time to keep myself honest.  Does it make for a boring newsletter?  I am betting it does, but given the choice of a.) do the sexy thing and go for a hundred-mile bike ride knowing I’ll pay thousands for a foundation repair in a few years or b.) be a little humdrum, stay home, and pump $30 of caulk into a hole,…well?  I found myself more often making the grown-up choice of ‘b’ this year at least that is to say when my work was not totally climbing my frame.  I like my work, but migrations are the I.T. version of the death march, generally speaking.  Funny, cuz I’m not even a real I.T. guy.                    

‘But I thought you said you crossed the parental pond, Matt?  What about that?’  I did and I have.  Keagan and Emerson, close brother and sister that they are, as of this year share a Bear Creek apartment (their idea), and while they might not see it as much, I see the arrangement as something that would have made a 24-year-old Matt green with envy.  They’re in pretty cool digs, or at least cooler than I had at that age.  

Grown kids do not tug at one’s pant-leg demanding a sippy cup or a ride to soccer practice.  They’re not there waiting with their needs at the end of each day, so there is an empty-nester freedom to be sure.  They do, however, sometimes send text messages appealing to Mom’s and Dad’s better resources, but even that is not altogether a burden.  It usually means we get a family visit, a chance at one of Theresa’s meal pageants, and a game night with Dad (me) fetching drinks.  There is almost always a certain upside to it. 

Telling this story might seem like a guilt-trip for my kids, to which I would respond, ‘Relax’.  This is as it should be.  Allow me to reiterate.  ‘It usually means we get a family visit, a chance at one of Theresa’s meal pageants, and a game night with Dad (me) fetching drinks.  There is almost always a certain upside to it.’  At the very least two very fun and funny things come out of it, one for each kid.  Emerson’s handyman-ism benefits me as much as it does his sister.  Sometimes I think if I had his know-how, I would throw mine away.  He’s learned a lot.  That and he is about the funniest guy to tackle a ‘honey-do’ with.  We make each other laugh as if we had front row seats at a Bill Burr concert when I get his help.  Keagan’s early 20-something ‘out on her own’ scavenger hunts should be made into a movie someday.  They are just plain hilarious.  On her last visit she walked out of our house wearing Theresa’s shoes, my pullover, and with a couple of prints pulled off our walls as if insisting, ‘These will look better at my place.’  Impressive!  The pitch usually comes in the same breath as her trivia game answer, ‘What is Saskatchewan?,…-Hey those are nice shoes!  Can I try them on?’  I love it just for the story.