{"id":7801,"date":"2022-12-31T12:56:10","date_gmt":"2022-12-31T12:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/?p=7801"},"modified":"2022-12-31T12:56:10","modified_gmt":"2022-12-31T12:56:10","slug":"so-that-was-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/?p=7801","title":{"rendered":"So that was 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well now, that was quite a year – some exuberantly joyful moments, some soul-crushingly dark moments, overall simply one of the most intense years of my life.<\/p>\n

All the usual things apply – didn’t achieve all I wanted, didn’t lose weight, didn’t get fit, didn’t read as much as I wanted blah blah blah. That’s not really what I want to talk about though.<\/p>\n

Over the last ten years I have greatly enjoyed watching and re-watching the TV series Breaking Bad, which documents the fall from grace of Walter White, a chemistry teacher who in response to a cancer diagnosis turns to the industrial production of methamphetamines to pay for his hospital bills (only in the United States of America is such a concept plausible). A pivotal moment in the story comes when Walter rejects financial support from friends. As with great literature, this choice is presented in an understandable way, and is not a wholly wrong choice, but it is at heart an assertion of Walter’s pride \u2013 and it is that pride, and the outworkings of that pride, which is the essence of the story and what I have been reflecting on in my own life.<\/p>\n

‘Until that moment I never knew myself’ says Austen’s Emma, at the moment of crisis and anagnorisis. My last few years have been increasingly stressful \u2013 changing home and work, divorce and years of legal strife, redundancy, and the consequent correlated ill-health that one can expect from such things \u2013 and like Emma I find that these strains have increased my self-knowledge. Most especially, I have come to a greater awareness (I dare not say a full awareness) of the way in which my actions over many years have been an outworking of injured pride. I know much more about narcissism than I ever expected to.<\/p>\n

Yet I am not Walter White, despite having identified so strongly with him in previous years. Most especially, in my darkest and most desperate moments, I have found that I have family and friends who love and support me, no matter how much of a plonker I’ve been, and from whom I have received, especially this year, remarkable blessings, practical, moral and spiritual. I am grateful to and for them.<\/p>\n

In contrast to Walter I believe, I hope, that my experiences of breaking over the last several years \u2013 what I sometimes think of as my ‘decade of disaster’ \u2013 is ultimately becoming an experience of breaking good. The Lord is teaching me a proper humility \u2013 not an abasement, not humiliation and self-abnegation, but a sense of the truth of who I am, and a sense of who I am in the midst of a web of relationships. I find myself frightened to experience a sense of obligation towards others that have been generous towards me, and then I ponder what someone lovely said to me, \u201cThat’s what friendship is mate,\u201d and I relax.<\/p>\n

So I find that my journey this year has been one where the injury to my pride is being healed by a sense of gratitude, to my family and friends, and to God for never letting me go despite how far I wander from the path. There is much further for that process of healing to go, but my children are healthy, I enjoy my work, I’m actually doing my PhD (!), I have a roof over my head and food and wine on the table, I have a sabbatical next summer to look forward to, and so I am minded to say… I have found Felicity in my life<\/em> <\/p>\n

\u201cForgiveness is letting go of the hope for a better past\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Previous years: 2005<\/a>, 2006<\/a>, 2007<\/a>, 2008<\/a>, 2009<\/a>, 2010<\/a>, 2011<\/a>, 2012<\/a>, 2013<\/a>, 2014<\/a>, 2015<\/a>, 2016<\/a>, 2017<\/a>, 2018<\/a>, 2019<\/a>, 2020<\/a>, 2021<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well now, that was quite a year – some exuberantly joyful moments, some soul-crushingly dark moments, overall simply one of the most intense years of my life. All the usual things apply – didn’t achieve all I wanted, didn’t lose … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-autobiography"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3npsc-21P","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7801"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7851,"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7801\/revisions\/7851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elizaphanian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}