Dear K,

Where did 2019 go? And 2018 and 2017? The perennial question!

Well, despite the ever-present bemusement at the end of another year, here we are at the end of another year. As promised last year, here is the EOY letter to yourself. So, let’s have a look back and see what went on with you this year. Looks like you started the year with sex. Not actual sex, but talking about sex. Which was not quite how you thought you would start the year, all things considered. What transpired from this, however, is that you realised that you were finding yourself a helluva lot more interesting as you got older and over yourself – even if others didn’t 😊 So much so, that you wrote a ballad to yourself about it. And didn’t even care if that was a tad weird.

Talking of not caring about things getting a tiny bit weird, remember how one of your sisters’ gifted you a sledgehammer earlier this year, in the event that you ever had a man, or a woman, trapped underneath the floorboards of your (older) flat. The sledgehammer was so you could smash a hole in the floor and free him, or her. Regardless of whether or not that smashing through the floorboards with a sledgehammer would actually be a possible feat for you, you are rather tickled to be in possession of a sledgehammer, anyway. The reasons for that have not been explored. This is one of the ways that you’re discovering that you don’t need to understand every feeling to enjoy it.

And then came the awful events of March 15^th. On that day here in Christchurch, a gunman ended the lives of fifty-one people as they gathered between two mosques for Friday prayers. That was the day that ugly bigotry got clearly defined for you. It made you own that you had a level of casual bigotry, too, even though you thought you didn’t. Gradually, some thoughts came together for you about this, and you vowed to work on eliminating bigoted and racist thoughts and language from your life. It’s not always easy, because your white privilege is embedded, and you don’t always agree with what other cultures do, but it has made you expand your world view, and you like that.

To help you along in your world view, you got a close-up view of the footpath when you took a dive off your foot-scooter soon after. You’d forgotten how much diving onto concrete hurts! And you got a lesson in how long it takes knocked-about ribs to come right, especially for a sixty-one year old. You also got a lesson in how much ribs are used when you want to turn over in bed. It’s a lot, isn’t it? And it hurts a lot, too, doesn’t it? Silly old fool! To give you your due, you didn’t let it stop you from continuing to scooter to the shops or the mall, but I know it took the shine off it for you after that. Eventually, you decided to give your grand-nephew this $400 scooter for Christmas. It was still in good nick, because you’re tend to be a bit anal about looking after your stuff, and he was thrilled to bits with it.

And you bought yourself an ebike as a replacement, which you’re thrilled with. Yeah, it’s a ‘boomer’ thing, but so what? You decided a while ago that you weren’t going to be ashamed of getting older, and try and pretend it wasn’t happening. But you weren’t going to stop the enjoyment of exploring and learning, either. Your first age-related solicitous bit of consideration from a bus driver was a bit of a shock, but you rallied quickly, and realised that you didn’t give a feck anymore about anyone else’s approval. Getting older has liberated and sharpened you in ways that you never thought of, and that’s been the best surprise ever!

As usual, you had a fair amount of feminist stuff to write about, too. When the topic of changing the abortion laws here in New Zealand arose, there was plenty of noise about how bad women were to even consider doing such a thing. There was plenty of noise, too, telling the anti-abortionists to STFU. But there was no noise about telling men to control where they put their sperm. Funny, that. Then you heard one of the best pieces of advice that either a woman or a man could ever hear in their lives – do what you want with your life, but don’t have kids with a dickhead. This is so feckin profound, it needs to be taught to us from age five!

Speaking of dickheads, super-dickhead Alan Jones – a shock-jock in Australia – got brought to heal (this time) by the Mad Fucking Witches, over his comments about New Zealand prime minister, Jacinda Ardern. It was a beautiful thing to see. But dickheads abound amongst us. Soon you were provoked to write up some rules for men about women, by a guy who thought that men who send unsolicited gross sexts to women should be cut some slack, because it’s just so damn, er, hard, to be a horny man.

There were a few times when you thought that giving a damn about all the things you give a damn about was too exhausting, and that you’d like to just live in an apathetic, hear/see no evil bubble. It took about three seconds to realise that apathy wouldn’t work for you, because it just sounded too boring – lol! So, I guess this means that you’re going into 2020 with some fire still in your belly, continuing to build on your life and your values, and embracing being b’older.

Hello 2020 😊