2022 A Year Of Big Losses And Big Achievements

When I look back at 2022, I cannot place the year into one simple category. It contained one of my largest academic achievements and one of the deepest losses close to my family. I completed my doctoral studies after a long period of work. A doctorate is easy to reduce to a title when it is finished. While living through it, it is made from many ordinary days: reading, writing, correcting, waiting, questioning, and trying again.

Finishing gave me a strong sense of relief. At the same time, our family experienced the loss of my wife’s mother. Grief makes achievement feel different. Life can place celebration and sadness very close together without asking whether the combination makes sense. One thought stayed with me during the year:

what goes away does not come back in exactly the same form. A finished period becomes memory. A person who is gone leaves an empty place. A child grows. We become older.

Life moves in one direction. This can sound pessimistic, but it also makes ordinary time more valuable. I do not want to remember 2022 only through success or loss. It was both. Maybe most important years are like that. They refuse to become one sentence.