This is going to be the shortest year-end blog I've ever done. Writing is a struggle right now.
I am working on getting past the depression and anxiety that have really sunk into me over the past two months. I've been caught in this sick whirlpool swirling between caring far too much about everything and not caring at all about anything. This is being medicated, so far without much effect. I've been struggling through physical illnesses as well -- a horrible, uncontrollable cough and a really dark gastrointestinal festival I'd rather not detail and you'd rather not learn about. Plus overwhelming fatigue which really has been the worst. . It's kept me off work for such a long time that I'm apprehensive to go back.
I'm not ready to write at length about the reasons for my anxiety and depression. You can probably guess one of them, and if your guess has something to do with a recent election and its results, please step forward to claim your chicken dinner. I have an e-friend who went on a weeklong bender in the immediate aftermath of that election, which I feel was a more than appropriate response. I have neither the discipline nor the budget to bend, so instead I just sank.
I'm coming up, slowly, and I have a new light in my life who is really helping. I'll tell you about her in a moment.
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One undeniable highlight this year: the trip to Chicago with my pal Craig to see the CSO perform Mahler 2.
I'd been hoping to get somewhere and hear something with Craig for decades. He's invited me to some pretty exotic locales. Chicago was one I could afford, and Mahler's Resurrection Symphony is not to be missed.
The performance didn't disappoint in any way, but I enjoyed the time with my friend at least as much. I love music and Craig lives it, and it was loudly and proudly blasting all the way across Michigan and back. I so rarely get a chance to listen to music without headphones. I'm sure we got more than a few side eyes from passersby, what with opera going and two Bruckner symphonies coming back.
And Craig being Craig, we got two visits in to the Barrel of Crackers. I so dearly wish Cracker Barrel would come to Canada.
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For several years now I have sensed big changes on my horizon and watched, apprehensively, as the horizon approached. Much of this year -- in fact, the last couple -- have seen us in a holding pattern. Early in October, that horizon came into view with the passing of my mother-in-law and it looks a lot different close up.
The original plan was for Eva and Mark to go to "the farm" -- a 42 acre property about ten minutes' drive outside of the village of Marmora, ON -- and for me to stay here and take in a tenant. Three weeks apart made it clear that plan was untenable: we are a family unit, the three of us, and we don't function well apart.
And so, late spring 2025 will see us discard this house Eva and I have lived in for 20 years, and Mark for eight. We will go east, and I will adapt to a whole new lifestyle.
It wasn't just the absence of Eva (and Mark, when he's accompanied her to the farm) that changed my mind so emphatically. I've spent several days with Eva up there and the instant I first walked into that home without its longtime matriarch in residence, I had a feeling wash over me I've only previously felt in two places -- neither of which is the home I currently live in. Peace. Tranquility. Security. A feeling of rightness, a you belong here, and soon feeling I wasn't expecting at all.
I don't ignore such feelings. Especially when they're that strong. I have been back a few times since, and the....healing vibes wash over me each time. It's quiet -- the five wiener dogs (and two lovebirds) we've inherited are finally getting socialized, and their behaviour is night and day from what it was when Anne ruled the roost.
It's deliciously dark at night. When twilight deepens into darkness, the feeling of oasis is unmistakeable.
And while it would take some work to move it off the grid, that work can be done.
This is what we have always envisioned: detaching from the economy and the culture at large and doing our own thing as much as possible. To that end, I have begun the incredibly painful (for me) process of separating myself from the world of pixels. I deliberately leave my phone at home sometimes, downstairs when I go to bed sometimes, and otherwise ignored at other times. Facebook has become all but unusable and most of my posts pass unnoticed, so I'm doing a slow fade from there as well. And most notably, I have changed my New York Times subscription to games only (Wordle is a Ken/Eva ritual and I adore the Spelling Bee). I've cancelled my WaPo sub outright. I am actually able to go an entire day without checking the catalogue of calamities that is the news these days.
Barter is common up there on the farm. We have close family friends who visit daily and the doors are always unlocked for them. It will be a Lifestyle Adjustment (tm) to be sure: our current home may as well have a moat around it.
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I normally include in these blogs my favourite media I was exposed to this year. But do you really want to hear Welcome to the Black Parade in Old English? Didn't think so. You do, however, want to see Something Rotten. Second funniest musical I've seen, just behind The Book of Mormon.
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Five years ago, someone new came into my life. We were only partners for five months or so, reasons too personal to detail but about 99.7% my fault. She faded into the background -- the deep background -- but we never quite lost contact.
Half a decade on, we've both grown, a lot, and now we've rekindled the relationship on a more solid footing. Nikki is behind me right now -- she's spent the last three days here -- and she fits so well into the rhythms of this house. Eva even let her cook unsupervised, which is high praise. Best of all, she's promised to come up to the farm at least once, and may be spending substantial time there depending on how things work out.
Never mind Trintellix and Rexulti: Nikki is the superior antidepressant. We face 2025 battered but unbeaten, as a family.
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