This year was extremely difficult for me, for numerous reasons. In a world that’s gone back to “normal” while I haven’t, I feel left behind and out of touch. I realize that this is my choice, but when you truly feel like you’re doing the right thing for your situation and it leads to feeling forgotten and alone, it hurts. In a world full of friends and loved ones having babies and announcing pregnancies and me having had my fifth failed round of IVF in August, I feel both genuinely happy for them and also even more isolated - physically, mentally, emotionally - myself. I debated not writing this at all, because I felt like a lot of it was going to be me talking about my struggles that people have doubtless already heard about. But that’s part of life. Infertility is part of my life just like chronic illness, like my mental health conditions. It’s as much a part of my life as my hobbies and (pre-covid) travels and house and yoga classes and everything else… maybe even more so because it’s connected to my actual body, and it’s not something I can alter my part in, the way I altered travel plans or shifted my yoga classes online when the pandemic hit. I also know that, despite what an extremely discouraging year it was in some aspects, there was some good, and I do want to celebrate that. Not in a “look on the bright side” toxic positivity sort of way, but because I believe in the both/and. Life and humans are complex, and it’s completely legit to have simultaneously conflicting emotions and experiences. These posts also help me to look back over the years, and see the change and growth, to remember enjoyable experiences I maybe forgot about, and to see how I’ve grown through the challenges.
IVF/Fertility Treatment
Note: there’s some decent detail about our fertility journey here. If you’d rather not read that, or if it may be triggering, please feel free to skip this section.
Might as well address the 10 ton elephant in the room first. I went into January 2022 not 100 percent optimistic, but feeling decently. In late summer/fall of 2021, I’d done two rounds of IVF, with two different protocols. The second protocol wasn’t successful, but seemed to work better in that we did get more eggs and one embryo, even though ultimately that embryo wasn’t viable, so it seemed like we had our protocol moving forward. I was starting some additional supplements (on doctor’s orders) that were supposed to help egg quantity and quality, and I thought round three might be better. We did get more eggs, but only one embryo, and that wasn’t viable. Round four was abysmal in every way. I bruised badly, I barely stimmed, the retrieval triggered a migraine flare so that instead of getting a nice 20-minute anesthesia nap followed by a day relaxing watching cheesy hallmark movies, I went under anesthesia feeling like my throat was closing up, and the rest of the day was spent horizontal because I vomited if I was in any other position. After round four, we took a little break, and did a nice staycation (see later points). We rejuvenated ourselves and decided to go in for round five. Despite all of the above, I had hope for round five. They adjusted my protocol slightly. I saw the results. It wasn’t the most eggs I’ve gotten but definitely the best follicles. All of the eggs fertilized and two - TWO!, which was unheard of for me - made it to the blastocyst stage. I was absolutely ecstatic. Until we got the results. Neither was viable. That was August. This fall, it’s been a roller coaster. It seems every time we think things look to be going better, we hit another roadblock. It’s been extremely emotional. Some days I hold it together well, I laugh, I enjoy activities. Other days, I break down in tears on the phone with the fertility center….or sipping my coffee, journaling, or driving, or just existing. I wish I had a nice little bow to wrap up this section, but I don’t. We’re still hopeful. We still have a plan. We aren’t giving up by any means. But we don’t have answers either, so right now, this is a “to be continued…”
Work
I’m going to say something that I never thought I’d say about working for a company that I didn’t own: the absolutely bright spot of my year has been work. It started out a little uncertain. The department that my team was under was moved to a new division of the company, but my specific team stayed in the division we were in. This meant that my teammate and I got moved under a new director who was staying under our current division, while everyone else on our team, including our manager, got moved to the new division. I didn’t know the new team well, and I admittedly was a bit nervous, since I had only been at the company just over a year and was just feeling like I was settled into the current team. Shortly after our team transitioned, my new manager, who is actually the director of the larger team, told me that they were creating a new Supervisor position for my team, and encouraged me to apply. Long story short, I did apply, went through several rounds of interviews, and I got the supervisor role! I don’t honestly know if anyone else applied to it or not, but I don’t feel it was given to me simply for lack of options. I feel like I was a good fit for the role, and it provided me with an opportunity to take the next step in my career path as a company. I’m now about 10 months into that role - I started 2/28 - and I have learned and grown so much because of it. I’ve gotten to grow the team I oversee, to have more interaction with other areas of our larger team, to be part of the leadership team (comprised of my boss/our director, myself, a senior manager, and a manager within our department), to help guide and grow Inbound Logistics as a whole. I’m absolutely loving it, and I am genuinely looking forward to continuing to grow in my role, team, and company.
In addition to my new team and role, my company introduced several Associate Resource Groups (ARGs) this year as part of our DEI development, and I joined the Advocates & Allies ARG. Anyone that knows me even a tiny bit knows how important advocacy work is to me, and being able to partake in this group is truly exciting. I’m also grateful to be part of a company that genuinely prioritizes DEI work, advocacy, and allyship. The ARG I’ve joined is still in the beginning stages, and I’m looking forward to delving into it more in the coming year.
We also started going back into the office occasionally. Starting this summer, it was voluntary to come into the office on Wednesdays each week, but not required to ever be in. Myself and my boss and one or two others regularly went in most Wednesdays. In October, the schedule changed so that we have to be in twice a month. We have set Wednesdays throughout the month , and our whole team comes in. It’s still not a ton of people and there’s a lot of empty space, which is nice for both the introvert in me as well as the covid anxiety in me. To be clear, I’m still a strong proponent of work from home, and absolutely believe in always having that option because it is really the only way to provide true equity for certain communities, such as the chronically ill community. It's my preference most of the time. But I have been pretty isolated and don’t leave the house a ton, so it’s been nice to break up the routine, to actually drive and listen to music, and it’s good to meet my colleagues in person, because it feels like we get to connect in a different way. I’m always masked in the office, I eat my lunches in my car, and I surreptitiously inch my mask up to sip coffee at my desk, which is in a cubicle surrounded on most sides by extra plexi glass for additional protection. If I ran the world, there would definitely be rules and guidelines I’d require for in-person office days while Covid is still a thing. But since I don’t run the world, I do my best to feel safe while also getting the experience of being in the office with my coworkers on occasion and breaking up my routine, which has become pretty sedentary and …well… routine.
Staycation
It’s been four and a half years since I’ve traveled internationally (Spain family trip, summer 2018) and just over three years since I’ve done a domestic vacation (New England Road Trip late November 2019). Besides seeing friends and family as much, travel is the thing I miss the absolute most since the pandemic started. I’m ok without dining out. I miss live music, but honestly I don’t know if I could go to a packed concert anymore, especially indoors - not just because of covid but because my feelings about large, packed group events have changed in general. I’m definitely ok with primarily working from home. I miss teaching and taking yoga in person, but I do enjoy my online classes, and it’s allowed me to practice with people from all over, instead of just nearby. But not being able to travel feels like missing an intrinsic piece of myself. I feel the most authentically me, the most free, the most like everything is going to be ok, when I’m traveling (other than the actual flight part because I don’t love flying). It’s like the ability to explore and adventure, to wander the streets where nobody knows you and can hold you to some preconceived idea of yourself or judge you by your past, where you can be whoever you want to be, allows my best and truest self to emerge. In summer of 2022 I had the opportunity to go to my family’s timeshare, along with several family members, in Mexico. I didn’t take that option. Primarily because of covid, but also because we couldn’t get our dog into her ‘camp’ that she goes to while we’re away because it was booked. So instead, my husband and I took a staycation. I’ve never done a staycation, and for obvious reasons it wasn’t the same as, say, the two week trip we did to Greece, or a luxury safari in Kenya and Tanzania like we’ve done in the past. But it was wonderful. We planned out day trips and activities. We took one day to hang out by our pool. We did an excursion with our dog Grace. We dined outdoors. We made rudimentary plans, but allowed ourselves to go with the flow within those generic plans, which is something we don’t often do. I thought I was going to be tempted to check my work email or do chores or take care of things around the house because we were home each morning and night, unlike a destination vacation. But after the first day or two of “this feels weird, I’m shirking basically all responsibility other than taking care of the dog”, that impulse went away, and it felt great! I never understood staycations before, but I do now. I’m not saying I’d choose it over traveling if covid wasn’t a thing (and if I could get my dog into her camp), but it definitely felt like a vacation, despite our home base being, well, home.
House Updates
Owning a 100+ year old home is like the gift that keeps on giving, if that gift included both anticipated and unexpected issues that cost tons of money. All kidding aside, we love our house - it truly feels like home. We have been continually having work and updates done, some of which were planned and some not so much, essentially since we moved in. This past year, we got the remainder of our rooms painted (by professionals, not ourselves), and the remainder of the new windows we’d ordered installed. We had a lot of new plumbing work (not planned), including our upstairs shower re-done by necessity, since they had to take the floor and part of the wall out due to said plumbing work. We got our fence variance, which allowed us to move the fence significantly closer to the edge of the property line, giving us much more usable space in our backyard. It’s been a game changer, especially for Grace, who now has about triple the space to run around. As part of that fence variance, we had to do landscaping along the fence within a year, so we had landscapers come out to dig up and mulch the area, plant arborvitae, drift roses, hydrangeas, and ornamental grasses. It’s a massive improvement. And finally, one of our front pillars fell down. Like something out of a dramatic movie scene. One minute it was there, the next minute it was a pile of rubble on the front porch (ahem… still is a pile of rubble on the front porch because we haven’t gotten it cleaned up yet). But we got composite pillars and had them both installed. They still need some paint work, but they’re in, and our entryway roof isn’t going to collapse, so that’s a good thing. The house is continuing to come together, and I honestly can’t imagine living anywhere else. Even on the days when things happen like our front pillar crashing onto our porch, I’m so grateful that we have this home.
Yoga
I wish I could say that my online yoga business is taking off and I’m getting tons of new students and adding a bunch of classes, but authenticity is always my thing, so I can’t say that this is the case. As studios have reopened and dropped mask requirements, people are practicing more in person. My class numbers haven’t grown, in fact they’ve shrunk from the “early stages of the pandemic” numbers, but I still have a steady group that comes to my Tuesday benefit class, as well as my pop-ups, especially on Sundays. My groups may be small, but they’re dedicated and loyal, and that means the world to me, and I’m so grateful. They spread the word, inviting friends and family members who occasionally join. I couldn’t ask for a better group to share practice with. I’d love to grow my yoga offerings, to get further into more limbs of yoga in addition to asana - maybe online workshops or retreats, that at some point in the who-knows-when future I’ll eventually feel comfortable doing in person. Maybe I’ll explore that in 2023, we’ll see. I’m also taking an online Yin Yoga course (and have done a lot of reading/work on Yin Yoga in addition) to further my knowledge of this branch of yoga. I’ve signed up for an online Restorative Yoga course as well. I’d love to be able to take these in person, but I’m just not there yet, and at this stage of my life, as my time gets pulled between work and home and fertility treatment, the online courses give me the flexibility that works for me. They by no means make me an expert in these areas (nor does my 200 hour in person training make me an expert in yoga), but they give me the confidence to better approach these types of classes, and they deepen my own knowledge, even if just to have that knowledge for myself. In addition, it’s really helped me shift my perspective. As a former gymnast, I’ve always been that student that can’t wait to get into an inversion or arm balance - not because I think you need to do these to “do yoga”, but because I personally enjoy these. And I still enjoy these, though I have less chance to practice them these days. But focusing more on Yin, bringing those elements more into my practices and classes, has allowed me to slow down, to focus not so much on the physical aspects of the poses, but on the deeper aspects - the stillness, the quiet, the opportunity to get beyond just the physical asana into something deeper. It’s tough to be deep when you’re trying to balance yourself upside down in a handstand - or at least it is for me. Yin has brought a balance to my practice that I’m starting to see in my life as well, and I’m really intrigued and interested to explore that balance further, as I continue to grow my yin education and practice, and delve into Restorative as well.
Writing
For my birthday, my parents got me a subscription to Storyworth. Essentially, it helps you tell the story of you. Every week for a year, it sends a question about yourself, your life, etc.. You write a reply and add it to the Storyworth site. When the year is up, you receive a hardcover book with all of your stories. You have the option to skip/swap out a question, and while they send you a prompt every week, there’s no timeline per se, other than that you answer them all in the year. Meaning that you don’t have to answer one question to get the next. So if you wanted to sit down the last week of the year and answer all 52, I suppose you could. I try to get most answers written within the week, but some weeks I have to push it to the following (like I may this week with the holiday). This has really gotten me back into more weekly writing, and I love that. I journal daily, but I haven’t been blogging like I used to. I just haven’t really felt all that inspired, and combine that with all of the time I spend on the computer for work, I’ve been shying away from blogging in my free time. But with Storyworth, I don’t have to feel “inspired’ per se - I don’t have to come up with the content, they do. And it’s a whole range of questions that I may not have thought to write about. Some more serious, some more light-hearted. I’m loving it. It feels really good to write again regularly, and it’s a great creative outlet for me - something that I’ve felt lacking over the past couple of years.
I think that sums up the bigger aspects of 2022 for me. There have been lots of smaller things in between. I’ve gotten to visit with several friends (either outdoors or indoors masked) that I hadn’t seen since before the pandemic, which was great. I’ve also been more in contact this year with several friends who are also still limiting activity due to covid, and have been feeling similar isolation and loneliness as I’ve been. It’s been really nice growing these friendships and deepening those connections. My husband and I have done some day trips, in addition to our staycation. We’ve been slowly exploring record stores in the area and building our record collection. We spent a lot of time grilling (ok that’s mostly him, I just provided company) this summer, and enjoyed our pool. As the weather has turned colder, we’ve enjoyed our fireplaces. We’ve laughed a ton, even though this year has held some really disappointing and emotionally painful moments. It’s been a year with a few big events and a lot of waiting (and anxiety) in between, and trying to make the best of some really difficult situations.
