End-of-Year-Survey 2023
1. What did you do in 2023 that you'd never done before?
I got an ADHD assessment after thinking about it for over a year. It was expensive, but when I found out it was partially covered through my private insurance, I decided to go for it. They gave me a brain scan and had me to do three hours of different tests, then they came back and told me that I do have it. Receiving a diagnosis like that in your 40s is wild because you have to go back and retcon your entire understanding of yourself. I keep having moments where I revisit my past and say, “Hey, maybe that’s why that happened” or “Maybe that’s why I reacted that way,” etc. etc. Like with university. It’s always bothered me that I didn’t do better in my undergrad. I tried so hard to get better grades but I just couldn’t seem to get there. Looking back I realize that I was already achieving the most I could have possibly achieved at the time with the poor executive functioning skills I had. I still finished with First Class Honours, I still went on to get two Masters degrees, and I still have a successful career, so why beat myself up for getting 78s instead of the 90s I wanted so badly? It worked out and I think those struggles made me a more empathetic person. Also, my grades from back then have zero impact on my current life.
I am gradually coming to understand the different ways my brain works, and instead of trying to fight them and make my brain work “normally,” find workarounds that suit the way I actually function. While this is sometimes a frustrating process, it’s also been a huge relief to let go of the belief that the way to “fix” myself is to force myself to be more like other people.
2. Did you keep your New Year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I only made one New Year’s resolution, which was to clear away all the junk that accumulates on the kitchen table each night. I managed it for about the month of January and then I backslid. I decided to try again this year because I have found a lot of organizational methods that work with my ADHD brain, so maybe I’ll have places to put the things that accumulate on the table. It won’t change the world or anything, but it’s pretty reasonable as New Years’ resolutions go.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No, but my friend Kate is pregnant, and after multiple losses and a stillbirth, I’m glad to say that it looks like this baby is going to make it.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
No.
5. What countries did you visit?
I didn’t visit any last year. We did go on a disastrous summer camping trip at Mont Tremblant, which Philippe wrote an account about that I posted earlier. Camping with one year old twins is a terrible, terrible idea.
It looks possible that I may go to the United States three times this year. The first will be for IB training in Myrtle Beach, which isn’t the worst place for a Canadian to spend a weekend in April. The second will be a family trip to Michigan in June to attend a GSIS reunion, which I am excited about. The third, which seems the most tenuous, is that apparently I have been matched as a bone marrow donor to someone in the US, so if it works out they will fly me there and back to make the donation (most likely to New York). We will see if anything happens there. It will be interesting to check back on this at the end of this year and see how this all panned out.
6. What would you like to have in 2024 that you lacked in 2023?
I’m not sure where this comes from, but I feel really disconnected from my colleagues. In some ways I am literally disconnected, since I work in a building across the street from the rest of the school, and people don’t like to come over to my side. In other ways I think I am left out of the departmental dynamics. Being a boss doesn’t help either; my staff are kind but there are things I just can’t say to them. But I also think that sometimes I have trouble talking to certain people. I’m always afraid that I might accidentally pry or come on too strong or say something off-putting, so I just absent myself from the conversation. Is that an ADHD thing? Maybe. Either way, I am not sure what to do about it.
I will say that we are doing a little better on the faith community front. Although I have a lot of mixed feelings about Catholicism, I wasn’t getting anywhere by hemming and hawing and it was time to commit. Catholicism is my faith home and I do feel better when I go to church. So we are attending a local church again weekly, and we finally got the twins baptized. It’s not perfect and sometimes the priest says things that make my eyebrow twitch, but no community is ever going to be 100% perfect. Besides, I am so tired of the current polarization of society and so I am giving myself permission to show up and try to relate to people as people. Which isn’t to say I will tolerate ignorance or bigotry, but I don’t want to draw a line through someone automatically because they don’t believe all the same things I do.
I still haven’t been able to bring myself to go to Confession, though. I know that they would want me to confess to taking methotrexate for my ectopic and for doing IVF and I don’t feel like being judged for any of that. The priest seems like a kind and decent man but I don’t know what he would say and I just can’t go there. Maybe someday.
7. What date from 2023 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
The camping trip, because it was just so laughably awful. A high point of my year was probably Rufus and Martha Wainwright’s Christmas concert, which had such amazing musical performances and got me feeling all warm and fuzzy.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
No one thing stands out. I guess I would say learning to work with my ADHD and being an affectionate and accepting parent. I try really hard to accept my kids as they are and not project my own ego trips onto them. They are their own people, not extensions of me.
On the work front, I suppose my biggest achievement was just survival. Elena quit just when the school year was starting, so we’ve been understaffed all term and I was trying to keep the balls in the air. One of my assistants had her usual grace under fire and carried things along, but I had a lot of conflict with my other assistant. We seem to have resolved it well, but we’ll see what happens when the new librarian starts. I am trying to ensure that she has as smooth a transition as possible.
9. What was your biggest failure?
I have to learn to manage my temper better. I get so snappy, especially with Philippe and Élise. It hurts my marriage and it hurts my relationship with her. I always regret it afterward but I have so much trouble shutting it down. I’m trying to change my self-talk so I stew less and focus more on solutions, but it’s slow going. I think it doesn’t help that I am always teetering on the edge of burnout.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Right before the school year started, I had a regular day at work. I was prepping my lunch for the next day when I suddenly felt as if I’d been hit by a truck. It came out of nowhere. I’d been planning to go do a workout only twenty minutes before, and although I tried, my body would not cooperate. I decided to head for bed and try to sleep it off, but my usual evening shower seemed impossible. I suffered through it, but by the time I got out, I was shaking. Then I didn’t leave bed for three days. I couldn’t move, my body hurt, I didn’t want to eat or drink anything, I couldn’t focus on anything, and I was dehydrated by the end of the second day. I also had viral arthritis, which was miserable but fortunately short-lived.
Philippe gave me a Covid test, which was negative. He didn’t think I’d had it because I had no respiratory symptoms, but I’m convinced that’s what it was. One of those new variants that does wonky things and fails to show up on Covid tests.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
I didn’t technically buy this, but Philippe got me a Ninja Megazone for my birthday. It is one of those air fryers with two baskets that can cook two things at two different temperatures. I already have a regular air fryer, a Ninja Foodi, but as a family of five we are already outgrowing it. Besides, nobody can mock my abundance of pressure cookers and air fryers because I use them all. For dinner tonight I used my Instant Pot to cook the chicken, my Ninja Foodi to cook the rice, and my Ninja Megazone to cook the vegetables. I didn’t even need to turn on the oven.
12. Where did most of your money go?
Inflation is crazy. I feel like I spent a lot of money this year. The ADHD assessment ended up being really expensive because although some of it was covered, when I called my insurance company to check, they neglected to tell me that the testing was covered 80% but the brain scan wasn’t covered at all. So that hit my wallet a lot harder than I’d expected. We spent a lot of money on the kids, of course. I blew my Christmas budget and then some. And then the cost of everything has just skyrocketed.
Fortunately, my investments have done quite well and are steadily growing. I’m on track for a comfortable retirement.
13. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
This wasn’t a New Year’s resolution or anything, but I decided to invite my friends Katherine, Julia, and Emma out for dinner early last year. We had such a good time that we decided to call it Supper Club and make it a regular event. I think we did four suppers together over the year, which may not seem like a lot, but we were each so grateful to have a chance to get together and talk. (I’ve gotten together more frequently with all of them, just not all at the same time.) Since I had even said in my 2022 survey that I was feeling the absence of women friends in my life, this helped to make us all feel less alone.
That reminds me that I need to make a plan for new Supper Club meetings this year!
14. What song will always remind you of 2023?
Probably Dance The Night by Dua Lipa from the Barbie movie, which was so much fun.
15. Compared to this time last year, are you:
Happier or sadder - Happier. Vivi and William are getting easier to manage by increments (although I would not describe having twin two-year-olds as “easy”). But we’re coming to the end of the major babyhood milestones. We’ve finally taken the crib rails down, which has made for a week of rough bedtimes, and Vivi has started to toilet-train, so once we can get William through that too, I think things will ease up a lot on the parenting front.
Older or wiser - I'll repeat word for word what I’ve said for the past nine years: "This question makes no sense to me. I have no choice but to be older, and hopefully a year will never go by that I don't become at least a little bit wiser."
Richer or poorer? - Richer. Prices have gone way up, but I have my full salary now that my maternity leave has ended, and my investments have done well. Overall, we are in a good financial place. We don’t have a ton of money but we are not hurting either.
16. What do you wish you'd done more of?
I’m not sure how I could have “done” this, exactly, as it’s somewhat outside my control, but I wished I could have had more time to myself. Or even time where I didn’t have to be rushing and optimizing and constantly running that little part of my brain that has to figure out how I am going to pack everything I need to do into twenty-four hour blocks. If I could work four days a week, it would take so much of the pressure off, but it’s not possible in my current job.
17. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Snapping. I get upset about something, usually because I am burned out and tired, and then I snap at my family members. Like I said above, I always feel terrible after. But Philippe and I have been working to communicate better, and that’s helping. One of the things that made me snap all the time was that he often did things that made me feel infantilized. For example, I received some money for Christmas and made sure to put it in a safe place so I wouldn’t lose it. Philippe moved it somewhere else to make sure I wouldn’t forget where it was. I know he was trying to help, but when I looked for the money and it wasn’t there, I got really upset (it was $900) so when I found out he’d moved it I was furious and yes, I snapped.
After that we talked a few things out and now that we are communicating better it is happening less. So that’s positive progress.
18. How will you be spending Christmas?
I spent Christmas at my parents’ house as usual. It was nice to have a break from the usual routine. The twins were still pretty labour-intensive but we were able to slow down our pace a little. My parents have mellowed a lot too - even my brother noticed that. They used to be very uptight about kids’ behaviour but now that they are more laid-back it is so much less stressful for us to be there.
19. Did you fall in love in 2023?
I still love Philippe. He is such a good husband and dad. We had some intimacy issues this year, mostly because our sex drives don’t match up. He always wants to have sex in the mornings when I just want to sleep in, and I only want sex in the evenings when he’s too tired. But we’ve talked that out too and we’re going to try some things this year.
20. What was your favourite TV program?
This is sort of an underdog, but this fantasy anime came out on Netflix called My Happy Marriage. It’s about a woman named Miyo who has been abused by her family for years because she doesn’t have any magical abilities, so her dad tries to marry her off to this aristocrat known to be abusive and cold. Except that he ends up being neither, and they fall for each other. And of course it turns out that she does have magical abilities after all. I was a bit frustrated by how Miyo had so little agency early in the series, but that really changes by the end of the first season. It got renewed and I’m very much looking forward to the second season. I even ordered the light novels the series was based on, but the translation isn’t great so I couldn’t get into them.
21. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
I don’t hate anyone.
22. What was the best book you read?
I can’t choose one. If the quality of the writing is my criterion, I’d have to say that The Secret History by Donna Tartt and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin were the best books of the year. Although I’d say that I prefer Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow just because there was so much in there that resonated with me, like a man and a woman in an intense friendship where they can never freely discuss the love they have for each other. I also enjoyed Patrick Stewart’s memoir Making It So, even though it was sad to realize that if he were born in Britain in similar circumstances today, he probably wouldn’t have been given the tools now to succeed as an actor. There were so many more social supports back then. He has no love for Margaret Thatcher, that’s for sure.
In terms of fun, I read two delightful romance novels in 2023, The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen by KJ Charles and Ten Things That Never Happened by Alexis Hall, both of which had a lot of heart. I am reading another KJ Charles right now and will be keeping track of Alexis Hall.
23. What was your greatest musical discovery?
I am embarrassed to say this, but my musical consumption is pretty monotonous. I find songs that suit what I’m writing and then I listen to that playlist on obnoxious repeat so often that I’m sure a more neurotypical person would lose their freaking mind. It turns out this habit is another common sign of neurodivergence. Who knew? All this to say that no great musical discoveries come to mind.
Oh wait, that’s not true! At the Wainwright Christmas concert they had Ariane Moffatt as a special musical guest. I’ve heard about Ariane Moffatt for years and years since she’s quite famous in Quebec, but if you’d asked me I wouldn’t even have been able to tell you one of her songs. But that night she did a cover of Losing My Religion that had me frozen in my seat with chills running down my spine. I knew that I was in the presence of a musician at the absolute top of her game (although I could have said that about any of the performers, honestly - that concert was worth every penny). Jeremy Dutcher sang The Huron Carol in Wolastoqey and that had the same impact on me.
24. What did you want and get?
I got more time with friends, mostly through Supper Club.
25. What did you want and not get?
Philippe and I have not succeeded in finding a new house. We looked but we haven’t been able to find anything in our neighbourhood that suits our needs while also being in our price range. Given how real estate is completely out of reach this isn’t surprising. We’re going to look into renovating, although I’m sure that won’t come cheap either.
26. What was your favourite film of this year?
Barbie was so much fun that I went to see it twice. I hardly ever go to movies anymore, let alone twice, but Barbie was worth it. I thought it was guaranteed to be terrible but it was so weird and incisive and heartwarming.
27. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 42 and went to a Senegalese restaurant with my friends. I didn’t have a great time though, to be honest. I was burned out and tired and one of my friends showed up with a cold and coughed on me all night, which had my heart sinking because I had a busy week at work and I couldn’t afford to get sick. I was a little worried that she had Covid too. In the end I didn’t get sick at all, but it still stressed me out so much that the evening wasn’t fun. The food was excellent though, spicy and delicious.
28. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Having more time to write. I find that a huge struggle.
29. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2023?
My style hasn’t changed much. I wear dresses during the summer and dresses with tights during the winter, sometimes with a cardigan on top. Easy and professional.
30. What kept you sane?
Running. It enables me to focus and keeps my anxiety at bay. I also like cycling to and from work when the weather is warm enough, and skating when there’s ice on the outdoor rinks, but they are not reliable as forms of exercise. Running is what I can do consistently year round, whether outdoors or on the treadmill at work. I also became pretty strict about stretching, which has made me feel a lot better.
I miss swimming, but since the pandemic the YMCA has really cut back its hours and there are never any lane swims that I can actually go to. I recently discovered that the Complexe Sportif in my neighbourhood has lane swim until 10pm several nights a week, and a year’s membership is only $50, so I hope to make use of that. Swimming is just as effective as running at keeping me sane, it’s just the access that’s an issue.
31. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Still Jean-Martin Fortier, which is nerdy of me, but I don’t care. I still think Lee Min-Ho is beautiful, by the way.
32. What political issue stirred you the most?
The most recent Israeli Palestinian conflict. I’m not Jewish but I have many Jewish friends, I used to work for a Jewish organization, and I have many Jewish students and colleagues. They have been destroyed by this, even retraumatized. I know that this is nothing compared to how so many people have been affected, but watching that play out in my community has been extremely difficult.
But the more I learn about the conflict, I find myself unable to condone the actions of the Israeli government. I am pro-Palestine and I want a cease-fire. I have struggled to figure out how to honour my political views while also honouring the suffering of my Jewish friends, colleagues, and students. In the one conversation I had with Maria this year, when she described her own pro-Palestine views, she said, “I don’t care if someone disagrees with me. If they disagree with me, they’re not my friend anymore.”
Maybe it was the fact that my own friendship with Maria has been troubled for years that triggered this reaction in me, but I can’t bring myself to just toss my friends because they don’t share my beliefs. What’s happening in Gaza is genocide, and the Israeli government is committing war crimes. I don’t think anyone can convince me otherwise. I do understand, however, why my Jewish friends might hold Zionist views, even if I disagree with those views. There are reasons why people come to their positions. The more polarized society becomes, the more difficult it is to create any meaningful change, and with an issue this big it will be impossible to move forward without genuine dialogue. I had two Jewish friends, Frensi and Zehava, who are both Zionists. I don’t agree with them. But they cared enough to reach out to me and speak to me in good faith when they disagreed with how I had responded to the crisis. I’m so glad they didn’t just cut me off for being on a different side of this issue.
33. Whom did you miss?
Maria. We did have a good conversation shortly after our birthdays, which are close together, but that’s the only time we talked in all of 2023. Recently I’ve tried to reflect more in depth on what went wrong. Was I unreasonably jealous that she had other friends? I do have a tendency towards unreasonable envy (being both an Enneagram Four and a Scorpio will do that to you), so I knew I had to face up to that possibility. I concluded that while I was jealous of her other friends, it wasn’t that I minded her having them. It was more than she seemed a lot more excited about spending time with them than she was with me, and it was hard for me to watch her put so much time and effort into those friendships when she was no longer doing it with ours.
But I also had to admit that perhaps my expectations were unreasonable. Although Maria never wanted children of her own, she likes kids a lot and I always assumed that she would want to be the “cool aunt” to my kids. But she’s made zero effort to connect with them. She met Élise once and she’s never met Vivi or William. But when I thought about the friends she is enthusiastic about, I realized that they have similar life circumstances to her, single, childfree, and able to devote a lot of time to personal interests. My experience has been that there is always, even in the best scenarios, a bit of friction in friendships where one person has kids and the other doesn’t. And it makes sense that she’d want to spend time with people in a similar boat to her. So maybe it wasn’t fair of me to assume that she’d want to be “cool aunt” when that was likely never her interest. So I am trying just to let that go.
That doesn’t change the fact, though, that she doesn’t make any effort. I’ve reached a point where I want to be friends with people who will put reciprocal effort into the relationship, and Maria hasn’t done that in over a decade.
34. Who was the best new person you met?
I can’t say just one because I met three very cool new people in 2023. I was on Facebook and saw a random post in a writer’s group (I don’t even remember which group now) asking if people might be interested in connecting for a critique group. I had made several attempts to join groups like this in the past but it always seemed to fall through. I was pretty sure that because of my childcare responsibilities there was no way this would work out either, but I commented to express my interest.
Except it did work out. The meetings just magically happened to be scheduled during the twins’ nap time, and Philippe graciously said he could manage childcare on those days. And it turns out the three women involved, Ann-Marie, Tiffany, and Sarah, have turned out to be absolutely incredible critique partners and even better friends. We have very different writing styles, projects, and backgrounds, but we all complement each other. We get together over Google Meet every two weeks to critique and discuss each other’s work. This started in February and I thought for sure it would taper off or that someone would drop out, but we have stuck with it and supported each other. My own project has improved hugely because of their feedback and I hope my feedback has been helpful for them. We also have a daily ongoing Facebook chat and although I have yet to meet any of them in person, their friendships have enriched my life hugely and helped to counter that loneliness I mentioned last year because I always have someone to chat to about interesting things in the publishing world or some new aspect of craft someone just learned or even just “Here’s this weird thing that happened to me today.” I feel very grateful to have met them.
35. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2023:
I’m learning more and more that I can’t battle the ills of the world alone. We need community and solidarity. We need each other, even though we’ve been told our entire lives we shouldn’t need anyone. But that just isn’t true.