So I know for most of us 2022 is a year we'll quite happily leave in the past. With Covid killing millions globally, Russia invading Ukraine and the rising cost of living impacting most of us, it certainly hasn't been a beer and skittles year. However, I'm a great believer in gratitude. So this post will highlight ten good things that happened to me in 2022.
You can't complain about winning stuff, right? My only concern was that we wouldn't be able to eat it all before the best before date. But we did. And it was delicious. Nom nom nom!
9. I went to an Ethiopian restaurant for the first time
This won't all be food related, I promise! But I do love food. And I think trying new things is the spice of life. I love going new places, meeting new people and eating new foods. When I read this article about a restaurant not far from us I was excited to visit. And I was not disappointed. I particularly loved using the injera to mop up the sauce of my curry.
And the service was amazing. Our waitress was super friendly and happy to talk through the menu with us. She even offered to comp us for Murray's drink when they accidentally gave us the wrong one (we refused. The drink was delicious and we'll happily try another one next time we go. Plus there's a vegan menu. As a lapsed vegetarian who doesn't eat a lot of meat, this is something I really appreciate. Definitely the culinary highlight of 2022 for me.
8. I started growing kawakawa
One positive things the many lockdowns gave me was rediscovering the joy of 'going bush'. I now have regular walking spots which take me almost entirely away from the hustle and bustle while still being very close to home. In one of these spots, there are always little kawakawa sprouting and me being me... I pinched a couple* and took them home. Now they are big enough I can harvest kawakawa from right outside my door! I have found kawakawa tea great for sore throats and feeling generally not so great. I'm so glad I have it easily at hand for whenever there's a need.
7. I discovered Wonky Box
Never heard of Wonky Box? Neither had I until recently but it's a service that sends you fresh, local produce that would otherwise end up in landfill. It's definitely not something that would work for every household - you don't know what fruit or vege you'll be getting until very close to delivery, but it works for us.
What I like most about it - besides the environmental aspect, is that it forces me to eat seasonally. Plus it encourages me to use ingredients I am less familiar with. Life is more exciting when you're not eating the same boring stuff week in and week out. This is also nutritionally fabulous - eating fresh, local, diverse foods is definitely a great way to get a wide range of vitamins and minerals into our diets. I've not used turnips much before, but now latkes are a dish served fairly often in our household. The humble kumara has been honed into many delicious new forms and leeks both feed us for a meal PLUS have a new lease on life as we replant the base in the garden (after re-sprouting it in water on the windowsill. This is all thanks to the fabulous Wonky Box
6. I saw Hannah Gadsby
With Covid and lockdowns and so many canceled holidays it was exciting to go see, well anything! And after the first show we'd booked was postponed when our Aus/NZ travel bubble burst, I was not sure if I'd ever see this show (or any other international act for that matter). However, 11 months after we were initially supposed to see Body Of Work we actually got to see it!
And it was brilliant! Hannah Gadsby is not just a funny, autistic human, but she's a masterful storyteller and all round aware person. These days I'm not so big on live music or large international shows, but I love me some comedy. And feminist, local(ish) comedy from someone with a background in art history is definitely my jam. So glad I got to see her live (and get the goss on how she awkwardly proposed to her wife).
This will seem like a frivolous thing. That's because it is. It's not on this list because I'm grasping at straws because that's how bad 2022 was, but more that I LOVE my new hair. Not just because I think it's pretty, but because I'm glad something good came of me being very sick with Covid.
In my case, it was a big auto-immune event. Consequently, as can happen when people go through things like childbirth or surgery, Covid caused me to experience hair loss. Instead of losing the normal rate of around 10%, I lost probably 25 - 30% of my hair in a short space of time.
Usually hair loss is considered a bad thing. And often times it is. When you're so ill your body goes koo koo bananas it's never a good thing. But I have very, thick and wavy hair. So for me it's just taken some of that weight away and allowed my natural curl to shine! Other than cutting it to encourage the curl and taking care of it so it's healthy, I haven't done anything to my hair. And while it's slowly growing back in, so this level of curl probably won't last, right now I'm loving it.
4. Duck rescue
While we try not to interfere with nature, we do love our ducks, and we have intervened on occasion. This year moreso than any other time as we've been deemed by some locals to be something of a duck rescue... So for short periods we've homed injured or orphaned ducks.
We had Yoki for just one night. They'd got too cold and couldn't keep up with Mum and the neighbour found them shivering on the driveway. We warmed them up and kept them inside and reunited them with Mum the next day. Sinbad stayed with us overnight for almost three weeks. Their leg was injured in what was likely a cat attack, and until they could keep up with their family, we decided to keep them safe with us. Daisy was dropped off by a school friend. She was found alone at the park and was only a day or two old. And Flash was an older orphan from school. We only had Flash inside for two nights before we successfully introduced him to our Mum duck Cilla and she welcomed him to her family.
Yoki and Flash are still alive and visit us most days. It's truly lovely.
This is Cilla with her babies (including Yoki and Sinbad) and Flash
Abby and Etta on their speech performance day
3. I saw our kids perform
One of the most awesome things about 2022 was that school started to return to something resembling normalcy. The highlight of this for many at our school was the return of Pacific Cultural performances and Kapahaka. Having it back has felt like the heart has returned to our school community. And while in the past I have enjoyed watching other kids perform, this year I got to see our kids perform. As someone with Māori whakapapa who was actively discouraged from performing in kapahaka by certain teachers, it feels pretty damned special seeing my kids live a different experience.
Not only did I get to see them participate in kapahaka, but I got to see them deliver fabulous speeches. Both were selected within their classes to present within their school syndicate. It was so awesome. Etta's speech on why Joan of Arc shouldn't have been executed was a brilliant, feminist argument masterfully presented. And Abby's speech was just her mihi, but the only speech presented in te reo Māori. Three winners were selected, and Etta was one of them. It was a super proud day.
2. I recovered from Long Covid
While I know plenty of folk handle Covid with ease, this was not the case for me. I was very, very sick. I should have gone to hospital, but at the height of the pandemic, the prospect of doing so was as scary as staying home. I got a chest infection. I was off work for almost three weeks. And then I developed Long Covid. This affected every aspect of my life. I had to cut back my hours at work, I had to cut back on jobs at home. I had to stop exercising**. I couldn't focus enough to read books.
The strange and frustrating thing about Long Covid was that it came it was inconsistent. Some days just getting out of bed was an effort. Other days my energy levels felt normal. I found it very difficult to assess whether I was overdoing things, or doing less than I should. Because some days I could go for a half hour walk and feel fine afterwards and other days I struggled to walk to the mailbox. Sometimes the lethargy was predictable. I could look back and see how I might have 'overdone things' in the days before. Other times though, it just hit like a tonne of bricks for no apparent reason. Colds which would previously hardly affect me, knocked me on my arse.
And it was like this for about seven months. It wasn't until October that things started to feel closer to normal. But the take-away here is that now things are closer to normal. Some people have Long Covid for much longer than I did. Some suffer far worse symptoms than the lethargy and exacerbated asthma that effected me. Some people will suffer from Long Covid for the rest of their lives
It wasn't easy but I did get through it and I am so grateful that I'm now doing ok.
Our attempt at a couple photo
1. Big changes at home
A really, really big thing happened last year that I haven't spoken about because it's just hard: Murray and I separated for three months. I know that separation sounds like a big and bad thing, but in the context of our lives we both believe it was necessary. Because this isn't just about me I'm not going to go into details but in short, Murray needed to address some health issues. I needed to have time to work on my health, and those things just weren't possible with us living together.
We set boundaries. We ensured he still had time with the kids. We talked about some very hard truths. And he did some hard mahi. Honestly, we would not be together today if he had not and I'm very proud of him for doing it. Separation isn't a magic wand - it hasn't wiped our problems away - but it created space for us to take a step back and assess our priorities both as individuals, as parents, and as a couple.
Things are not perfect. There is still a lot of work to be done, but we are willing to do it. Without this, our whanau would be in a very different place today.
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I'm not going to lie, 2022 was a hard year for me - just as it was hard for many of us. But out of the struggle has come a lot of learning. I am grateful to start 2023 armed with the knowledge I gained from last year. And whatever this year brings, I will continue to find bright spots to hold in my heart.
* It's from council land, so technically not legal buuut it's in a scrub area which is natural, and there's not a lot of space. So taking a few plants isn't hurting anything, and gives existing plants more space to grow.
** I had tried cutting back, but I think that's what contributed to my developing Long Covid. When they say rest - they mean rest. Like, stay in bed and do nothing level rest. Cutting back swimming on swimming 1.2km three to four times a week to swimming even 500 meters twice a week was far too much until very recently.
** I had tried cutting back, but I think that's what contributed to my developing Long Covid. When they say rest - they mean rest. Like, stay in bed and do nothing level rest. Cutting back swimming on swimming 1.2km three to four times a week to swimming even 500 meters twice a week was far too much until very recently.
