This Year in the Life of your Absentee Blogger

Hi everyone!
I’ve been entirely absent from all of my blogs (and most of my social media in general) this year, so in the interest of keeping everyone up to date, I’m posting this on all my various blogs. It’s just an update, so don’t worry, I’m still working on my PhD (and excited about LIS!), planning another book, and cooking and preserving lots of food. I just haven’t actually started the book or blogged about any of that stuff (yet), but hopefully that will change soon!

This year has been really significant on a number of levels. On one level, it is the year I turned 30, a year I’ve always held in high esteem and been excited about ever since I was little (related: 30 is my “golden birthday.”) I think in some ways I expected I would finally have my sense of self figured out and in some ways I do, but I also love that one of the hardest years has also given me a chance to rediscover myself, what I love, and how much more I have to learn and see and do. Why such a hard year, you ask? Well…

The main reason this year has been significant is all the things that have happened in it. It’s been a time of major growth and reconnection with many very special and important people in my life, but also unfortunately a time of distancing from others who were not a part of that process in ways that I needed. Between the end of January and the end of October, three of my grandparents died. Every conference I’ve been to this year has been immediately followed or preceded by a funeral, so if you saw me at a conference and I wasn’t my chipper self, it probably wasn’t you! 

The last of my grandparents to pass did so three days after a dear friend, and one of the most amazing human beings I’ve ever met, was killed in a car crash while I was at a rare live performance of one of my favorite bands. That performance will always be in my heart for its beauty and for the joy I got to share with some other wonderful friends who I watched it with, but also because I can’t imagine a more fitting way for me to have spent Emily’s last moments besides being exactly where she probably would have loved to be.
I also had mentioned on all my blogs an impending New York move: That was cancelled at the tail end of January after returning from funeral/conference set number one and hearing from my partner at the time that he was not interested in continuing that partnership. That was good in some ways because I still get to be friends with the person, and I get to move and plan my studies around my own schedule, but at the time there was a decent amount of hurt that went with the experience. By the time my second grandparent died, I felt like I had learned a lot, but still had a lot of learning and processing to do, but I also had a better sense of what to expect.

For all the challenges of the year though, there have been plenty of good things. I got to see both sides of my family in the same year, which is a rare treat, spend much-needed and much-desired time with all of them, and hear stories about our family’s past. I got to cook a lot of great meals alongside my friends and family, and share them with people I love. I got a new pet Bearded Dragon and still have three happy and healthy cats.  I got to tell a lot of people that I love them. I took my preliminary exam, which ended Monday, and hopefully passed so I can advance to candidacy. I got to offer support to people who needed it, and I learned more about how to be a better support to the people around me.
I got an adjuncting position teaching an amazing class at a school that has some amazing faculty, and I got to teach some incredible undergrads in my first ever face-to-face TA assignment. I got to meet new people, develop new relationships, and strengthen the relationships I have too. But I also got a chance to learn when it’s time to create distance between myself and a project or myself and a person when I feel like I’m overwhelmed or need support that I’m not finding there, and that’s huge too. And I got to re-shift some priorities, and make more time to allow myself to heal.

There’s not really an ultimate “point” to the post; no major life lesson or anything that I feel an urgent need to share, but I feel like it’s important to put this stuff out there. Many of the people I’m connected to on social media are people who I feel kinship with on some level, and I’m happy you’re all a part of my little corner of the world. And even though this year was crappy, and hurt, and I wasn’t always convinced there would be a light at the end of the tunnel, I’m glad I can take a lot of lessons away from it. I won’t ever stop missing everyone I lost this year, but I also will be better about telling everyone who’s still around how much they mean to me.