It was hard to feel grateful about my life when I was puking on the hot asphalt of a two-lane highway in the desert. 2022 was stressful. Just ask my gut, which decided it was taking a stand after I locked myself in for a month to push for the final release of Terranova, then got on an international plane flight to clean out the last of our belongings from home no longer home. I pulled double-shifts; from 7AM I was cleaning out our storage locker and at night I was working my job until 1AM in the evening to accommodate the time difference.
Part of it was out of necessity and loyalty to my company; the other was hubris. I thought things couldn't get done without me being there.
In the end, my body got what it wanted—uninterrupted rest.
And then a family member passed away. I'm going back to no longer home, again.
There were a lot of highs.
- I co-published Terranova with @mabbees on Steam; our first polished game.
- We got a new rabbit. His name is Hershel Layton.
- I spent a lot of time in front of a furnace making glass.
- We made rings.
- I went shopping for the first time with other nonbinary folx.
- I went on an hour-long walk with a friend for the best pancakes I've ever tasted.
- I won my first award for a Japanese speech I gave.
- We did a talk on interface dramas.
- I finished two P5 fics that are 15K and 8K apiece.
- I fell asleep in the arms of people I love.
- I left my job.
I'm not always the most thankful person. Maybe it's because I'm thinking of ten things at once and I have only one mouth, or that I tend to over-rotate on all the things I've fucked up or misremembered or procrastinated on. I'm working on it; to feel more pride and gratitude.
I'm grateful to my body for stopping me because I'm stubborn as hell and probably wouldn't have stopped working had it not been for sickness. I'm grateful to my friends abroad who, after the asphalt incident, set me up with a bucket and their dog who snuggled in bed with me while I was at my sickest. I'm grateful to my friends back home who came to our house and helped wash our dishes because I turned into a non-functional sack of meat towards the end of the year.
Thanks, y'all. I'm proud to have good friends, and proud to have accomplished something neat in 2022.
Looking forward to the new year.
