Year in Review - 2022

 A January tradition to recount my year and reflect on all that was good and done.  I wish I had done it in 2020 and 2021 but here we are.  Ready to recap a most wonderful 2022

Travel:

Happy to say that travel has become a staple in our life.  Each year, we aim to take a few longer trips as well as mix in plenty of smaller trips.  In 2022, we had an amazing trip all over Switzerland - Zurich, Interlaken, Appenzell, Zurmott....two trips in the Bahamas with the boat.  One trip was to the Exumas - remote and low-key while J was in Brazil for Feb break and the other was to the Atlantis resort with Joe....and Joe's first visit to Spain to celebrate Santi's First Communion.   Everything was spectacular, as usual.     

Our smaller trips again included the Red Cottage in the Catskills, a week in Nantucket (with overnight in Onset harbor - a working town with a magical vibe), a wonderful Cassidy family week at Lake Winnisquam, and probably others that are just escaping me...  All of this to say, travel has become an integral part of what we do. There are times it requires a push, but it's never regretted.  I look forward to continuing to explore in 2023. 

Life:

The last time I did one of these recaps, I was inching my way out of a darker place.  I was discovering a career, figuring out who I wanted to be in my post first-marriage life and inching towards a better place.  The main reason I was absent from this space was working from home and not sitting down in front of the computer like I used to - but the second reason was because I did not feel I had as much to work out.  I was happy again. 

Here I am, a few years and a global pandemic later, happier than ever.  Now I feel I have "leveled up".  It's kind of a lame expression to use but I don't know how else to explain it.  I was climbing here and having glimpses of it but now I feel here.  I am loved.  I am secure. I am good.  It's always nerve wracking to type these words, as though a lightening bolt is going to come and take it from me but even if that were to happen, I think it's worth recording that as I turn the page into 2023, life is wonderful. 

Art:

We've been members of Broadway in Boston for a few years now which has been a total treat! We see about 6 shows a year, many of which we probably wouldn't push to see but blow us away.  This year SIX was that for me!   We also saw the Nutcracker for the first time in a few holiday seasons and I think it was the best yet!    We took Joe to his first concert (Imagine Dragons) which was so much fun and I look forward to sharing more live music with him.   We saw Bruno Mars, my first opera, a visit to the ICA


Work:
 We wound down a big program at our company which resulted in managing the first lay-off in my career.  It was tiring and unpleasant and we all walked most of the year with a lot of trepidation.  But here we are, with an FDA approval and an exciting year ahead.  I'm in a good place with a job that challenges me and leaves me with a lot of independence and time and I'm happy to be where I am.   

Service is important to me and as I enjoy a job in the for-profit world, I have found ways to craft service into my schedule.  I'm co-leading the Villanova Boston Alumni Service Chapter which has been a fun way to get individuals involved with service opportunities.  We held a successful event at Cradles to Crayons with 30+ volunteers and in January we will serve meals at the St. Francis house.  It's been a way to bring something I would have liked to see - service opportunities and a stronger Boston/Villanova connection - to reality.   I also was fortunate to join the St. Augustine's Campus Ministry Team. Each Tuesday at 3pm, we meet with 6th, 7th and 8th graders to share ways to help their communities, bond together in a positive way, and think about each other as neighbors.   It's been a highlight of my year - I love the kids and the teachers I have met doing it.  It's a way to come together each week in a peaceful and productive way. 

Parenting:

Joe is 10!  It's hard to believe my boy is in 4th grade - doing long division, taking science tests etc!   But as always, he's a joy with his kind heart, creative mind, and overall wonderful attitude.   I can only feel gratitude and pray nothing changes.  He is just the greatest gift.  

A new category: Relationship

S and I got engaged this year!  I would have never seen it but it feels exactly where we should be.  Our relationship is mature, fun, non-dramatic, loving, open, and balanced.  Joe's response to the engagement was, "I didn't know you had feelings for each other".   We are happy.  together.  and committed.   Life is good.  "Fall in love with someone who is both your safe place and your biggest adventure"  

Cheers, 2022.  You were a good one. 

 "Have more than you show, speak less than you know" - Shakespeare, King Lear

Published in 1608, and ever as relevant.   As I scratch at the surface of becoming more educated in history, I am continuously astonished by the ways in which human beings never change.   Round and round we go with the same weaknesses, the same temptations, so many of the same battles to overcome. 

It's fascinating. It's challenging.  It's us.  

(photo) 

Ikigai

 

Family Tree

 The number one item on Joe's Christmas list this year was an instant camera.   In a limitless world of cell phone photos, it's funny that the kids (it was Audrey's #1 gift too!) still wish for the instant printed effect of a captured photo.   A few weeks ago, he cleared the bulletin board in his room and the only thing that remained was a wallet sized picture of Papa around second grade!   From there, he had the vision of creating his family tree and when the instant camera arrived on Christmas morning, he proceeded to get a photo of every member of his family!  

When we arrived back home, he went right to work and proudly showed me his FAMILY TREE! 

Coming from a wonderful Christmas weekend in New Jersey, we all have family on our mind.  So many similarities between the way we look, our preferences and sense of humor.  Not to say we are fully synced, we share plenty of shortcomings and have some that are uniquely our own! :)  But I am glad we have each other and very glad Joe feels so bonded to his roots.  

“What makes a person a person? What combination of memory, history, imagination, experience, subjectivity, genetic substance, and that ineffable thing called the soul makes us who we are?” Dani Shapiro, Inheritance. 

   

(Joe and Penny realized their elves might be related, too!) 

Three Essential Commandments of David Frick

Three Essential Commandments from David Frick, Rock n Roll Editor for Rolling Stone Magazine as conveyed by Superintendent Deacon Kevin McCormack

1. Respect your elders

2. Embrace the new

3. Encourage the improbable and impractical without bias. 

Hadestown

 A few years ago, we started to attend more live performances.   Broadway in Boston has turned into a sincerely enjoyable past time and we even became season ticket holders.  One of the benefits of holding season tickets is that we have attended shows we may not have normally found the energy to see. 

One of those shows was Hadestown.   Although the story line sounds a bit unusual - an underworld, mythical Greek characters, the music in Hadestown is phenomenal and the show, like almost every show, challenges the audience to better understand our relationships, our viewpoints and our humanity. It became one of my all-time favorites.

If I had cassettes or records, this song would be worn out by now.  It is stunningly beautiful, with one of the best song intros of all time. 

[HERMES]
(spoken)
Orpheus was a poor boy
But he had a gift to give
He could make you see how the world could be
(sung)
In spite of the way that it is

(spoken)
And Eurydice was a young girl
But she'd seen how the world was
When she fell
She fell in spite of herself
In love with Orpheus

All I've Ever Known 

I was alone so long
I didn't even know that I was lonely
Out in the cold so long
I didn't even know that I was cold
Turned my collar to the wind
This is how it's always been

All I've ever known is how to hold my own
All I've ever known is how to hold my own
But now I wanna hold you, too

You take me in your arms
And suddenly there's sunlight all around me
Everything bright and warm
And shining like it never did before
And for a moment I forget
Just how dark and cold it gets

All I've ever known is how to hold my own
All I've ever known is how to hold my own
But now I wanna hold you
Now I wanna hold you
Hold you close
I don't ever wanna have to let you go

Now I wanna hold you, hold you tight
I don't wanna go back to the lonely life

I don't know how or why
Or who am I that I should get to hold you?
But when I saw you all alone against
The skies like I'd known you all along

I knew you before we met
And I don't even know you yet
All I know is your someone I have always known

All I know is you're someone I have always known
And I don't even know you
Now I wanna hold you
Hold you close
I don't ever wanna have to let you go

Suddenly the sunlight
Bright and warm

Suddenly I'm holding the world in my arms

Say that you'll hold me forever
Say that the wind won't change on us
Say that we'll stay with each other
And it will always be like this

I'm gonna hold you forever
The wind will never change on us
Long as we stay with each other

Then it will always be like this

Lion Hybrid Industries

Using this space to memorialize this chapter for J, Founder and CEO of Lion Hybrid Industries! 

J you are a boy who sticks to your guns.  When you were 2 or 3 you decided that your favorite color was red.  Since then, there has been no doubt what color you'd choose for the plastic gingerbread man in Candyland, your backpack, your new folders for back to school....   When you were 4, you shed tears in the car the night before your 5th birthday because "I don't want to be 5, 4 is my favorite number!" You've since added a little to that, and now 44 is you favorite number - and as you were learning to add double digits, the first combination requested was always a pair that would make 44!   

You're a boy of conviction.  A few years back, you decided lions were your favorite animal.  There's a lion calendar in your room, plenty of early I Can Read books were about lions and you memorized nearly every episode of the Lion Guard, Disney's successor to the Lion King, my guess - not watched by too many.  Nobody at Auntie Amy's house for Christmas of 2020 will forget your enthusiasm over your favorite gift, AN ASIATIC LION STUFFED ANIMAL!!  Just what you'd always wanted ;) 

I think it was a nature show when you first learned of the nearly extinct Barbieri Lion.   You needed to know more - it was black.  There was one in a zoo in Europe.  Somewhere between there and now, you have decided your future job will be a "Hybrid Lion Scientist" - extracting DNA from Lions and Big Cats and making combinations "Lither (Lion/Panther), Litah (Lion/Cheetah), and of course the Black Lion (Lion/Jaguar)!"

My favorite part of this chapter is watching your passion and creativity explode!  You have endless ideas and energy for your future company, Lion Hybrid Industries.   At school last week, the kids were invited to dress as their future careers.  We picked out a shirt on Amazon and you proudly wore it to school and described to your 3rd grade classmates what your future job would entail.  While other kids talked about a career in the NBA or a builder, you stood confidently and explained your role as a Lion Hybrid Scientist.  I asked if anyone understand your dream, you responded "most said 'I have no idea what he's talking about!'"   I said, "ha, they said that?"   You said, "no, but I could tell that's what they were thinking in their heads"

Oh my J.  Perfectly you.  Perfectly happy marching to the beat of your very own drum.  One of my only wishes for you is that you never, ever lose that sense of security about yourself.   The world is yours..... my smart, funny, creative, kind son. 

                                                                    Career Day, 3rd Grade

                        You assigned roles to many of your friends and I helped you draft a company org chart!