I didn’t do much of anything in 2023 to make a “tops of the year” list about (except reading, but I’ll tell you about my fave books of the year next week, after I finish the one I’m currently reading).
The only thing I did in spades was ruminate. About life, about parenting, about identity and culture and belonging, about my relationship to the internet, and, inevitably, about the state of the world.
I came to no brilliant conclusions, but I did change a few things about the way I’m living my life, and the ripple-effects have been major. I left my job. Took my kid out of the school system. Plunged heard-first into writing the book I’ve been thinking about for over a decade, which is now nearly done.
Winter was hard. In January, I traveled to Sarnia to attend the funeral of a friend who died suddenly, unexpectedly, at the age of 37, one of those could-not-be-predicted-or-prevented tragedies that makes you feel utterly helpless and minuscule in the face of forces you have no control over.
Spring was more celebratory. I went to Las Vegas for my first time, to attend the wedding of two dear friends (and cried many happy tears). I threw my kid a huge birthday party at our local indie cinema, and played his favourite music videos for an hour while 50 kids ran around, high on cupcakes. After a few years of cancelled pandemic birthdays, it was perfect. And, I wrapped up my job as Director of National Canadian Film Day, after having overseen the 10th edition. I am proud of my accomplishments, and also glad to be done.
Summer was all about big decisions. I started this Substack and stopped sharing all my sad-sack feelings in Instagram stories, and it improved my life immensely. I saw family, swam in lakes, camped, and the burnout-induced fog I’ve been under for years lifted enough that Colin and I could make a clear-headed choice about our kid’s future.
The fall was, as usual, a blur of highs and lows. There was TIFF, mom’s birthday, our Slava, and Halloween. Then, the anniversary of mom’s death, and Colin’s birthday. There were two sleep studies, a sleep apnea diagnosis, and treatment for it, which seems to be working.
I solo-parented twice in 2023, for a week each time, while Colin attended film events in Germany and Spain. Two weeks over the course of an entire year doesn’t sound like a lot, but it was for me. I managed not only to survive, but to enjoy it. I didn’t fall into a pit of despair as I certainly would have a couple of years ago, when the kid was smaller and more inscrutable.
I started and stopped and started and stopped and started exercising many times, all of which amounts to more consistency than I’ve managed in many years. I grudgingly admit it’s having a hugely positive impact on my mental health, but I don’t want to jinx this positive trend, so let’s talk fitness in another three to six months.
I spent a lot of time in 2023 thinking about how screens affect my ability to pay attention, my ability to connect deeply with people and with activities and issues that matter to me. Two women I became IRL friends with over the past year (after meeting both through Instagram) have made the decision to step away from social media. On one hand, I admire and envy their ability to take such decisive action. I’ve been wanting to break up with my phone for years! On the other, I know my life is richer for having met both these women, and others I’ve met through them, and without Instagram, I probably wouldn’t have any of them in my life.
Being constantly online definitely has a negative impact on my ability to process and participate in world events. That’s been clear over the past couple of months, and I’ve thought a lot about how the formative world-scale tragedies of my ‘90s adolescence (the Gulf War and the dissolution of Yugoslavia, which took place in the two countries I had lived in before coming to Canada) would have played out differently for me (emotionally, and otherwise), if I’d seen them unfold on Instagram, and felt compelled to participate in an online discourse about it, to publicly perform my grief, my activism, my condemnation of violence (especially as a Serb1). I don’t know, but I’m glad it didn’t play out that way.
Last night, a friend recommended the book Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention, And How to Think Deeply Again by Johann Hari. Perhaps it will help me shape a better relationship with the internet-at-large in 2024 — for myself, and for my kid? A big topic for another day.
I hope to spend the last two or three weeks of 2023 relaxing, and trying not to think too hard about the fact that I’m now out of grant money and need to dust off a resume that hasn’t seen the light of day in over a decade, in order to find a new way to pay my bills in 2024. Wish me luck on that.
For now, a big and heartfelt thanks to all of you for following along here, while I figure out how to live my life in real time. ❤️
My people did, after all, invent the term “ethnic cleansing,” if not the concept.