Doctor T Designs

Even though I mostly write about sewing on the blog, I do like my tradition of doing a non-sewing look back as well, because I think it adds a lot of context, and it’s a helpful reminder that social media doesn’t always show the full picture. My 2022 Review wasn’t super upbeat, and while I don’t think 2023 was quite as devastating to me on a personal level, it hasn’t exactly been the best time either.

Non-Sewing Year in Review

This has been a challenging and exhausting year. Looking back, I didn’t do nearly the amount of travel I did in 2022, yet I definitely felt like I hit the wall I’d been heading towards for a while now. Even though there was a lot of personal grief for me in 2022, I feel like I didn’t really have time to manage or process it all until about halfway through this year, when things really slowed down for me. I really hit a wall in terms of energy, and I hit it hard. In a lot of ways, sewing has been the thing keeping me sane this year, and though I’m going to do a full sewing review tomorrow, I think it needs a mention here as well. It has been challenging to find the motivation to keep up with all my activities, and though I’m needing to work harder now because I’ve let some things drop off for a bit, I think maybe overall it was a good thing because I needed a bit of a break. Honestly, I think it has just been difficult to exist in the world this year, for a lot of reasons. I don’t even know if I have any big highlights from this year, looking back. It definitely felt like a year to take joy in the small things, like seeing friends I hadn’t seen for a while because of the pandemic, or taking a day to sleep in and make brunch, or getting caught up on a favorite show. And maybe that is the lesson of this year – to appreciate the small things, even when it feels hard to do so.

Goals for 2023 – How Did I Do?

At the end of 2022 I wasn’t much in the mood for goal-setting, but I had a few things on my list:

(1) Health: “I want to be more conscious about what I’m eating in the hopes of having more energy to do things, and I also want to try to be better about sleeping earlier.” This… was up and down. I keep trying to sleep earlier but I end up staying up late and working anyway. I have been, generally speaking, sleeping in a bit later though. I don’t think I really made as much of a conscious effort on this during 2023 as I could have, but I didn’t totally disregard it either.

(2) Reading: “I do really want to try to read more books next year (I’m going to be more reasonable and say 12 books because I’ve got a giant stack of super beefy fantasy novels on my desk right now and length is definitely a consideration here).” I actually got through 12 books! Barely, but I did it. I haven’t been reading as much as I would like, but it’s been steady and that is better than not at all.

(3) Social: “I want to try to do more things with friends.” I have been more mindful about making an effort to see people and do things this year, and I think it has been a good thing. I feel like this is the year I sort of forced myself to exist in the world again. Even though I didn’t have nearly as much travel as last year, I have made more effort to spend time with people when they are in town and to go to local events and activities.

Goals for 2024

This might be a bit weird, but I don’t really want to set any goals for next year. I feel like I’ve been trying to recover my energy levels during much of this year, and it would honestly be a bit artificial at this point to pretend that I am excited about adding more things to my ever expanding to-do list. So, maybe next year I don’t have goals but I have a hope that when I write my 2024 annual review I have a much more positive year and am feeling more energetic by the end of it than I am now at the end of 2023.

Conclusion

2023 has been a hard year, but not in the same way that 2022 was hard. Last year felt like a year of contrasts – extreme highs and lows all piled in together. This year was not nearly as extreme, but I leave it with sort of an overall feeling of blah. There have been challenges and struggles, but not really the rewarding kind. More like the kind you just have to deal with to get through them, and they are what they are. I will say that I have come to appreciate my friends and family more this year. I am not good at expressing these feelings, but the best parts of this year were the small moments spent with others sitting at a park, getting ice cream, or just talking on a call. Maybe it wasn’t a great year for being productive, but it was an important year to learn the lesson of appreciating the small things. While I will largely be glad to leave this year behind, I will be grateful to take that lesson with me into 2024.