A few years ago, my friend Sacha said to me that the narratives we tell ourselves are very important, and you have a choice in how you frame your story. I think it’s incredibly easy - as any anxious person will tell you - to blame yourself and tell yourself that narrative, but sometimes it’s just really unfortunate coincidences. Sometimes the stars just weren’t aligning for you. Things look worse if you’ve tunnel-visioned to the bad things and also told yourself it was your fault.
Despite Sacha’s sage advice, the narrative I had been telling myself was that this was the worst year of my life so far. In my defence, this was not hyperbole - a cruel number of people I knew or shared communities with passed away this year:
My uncle, who I wrote about earlier this year, David Hodge
One of my high school teachers, Bob Pipe
One of my university lecturers and a crucial supporter of my Master’s thesis, Geoff Lealand
One of my university tutors, local zine and music legend, and co-founder of the phrase “Hamiltron: City of the future”, Dean Ballinger
My friend Luke’s mum and incredible health advocate, Elisa Lavelle Wijohn
My friend, climate change and cycling champion, and generous, hard-working Go Eco supporter, Lloyd Morris
Another Go Eco supporter and local environmentalist, George Lusty
I also crashed my bike in March and it took till May to both get my bike fixed and have my complaint about the hazard that caused it resolved, it was the ten-year anniversary of my brother Greg’s suicide, and I got both COVID-19 in July and still have long COVID.
But I’m writing this newsletter to reset the balance of this narrative. There were lots of shit things, but there were also not shit things. Good things, you might even say. They don’t take away the loss and pain that is still very real, but 2022 had a strong finish.
The obvious
I got elected to Hamilton City Council. Holy shit. This thing I have spent four years working towards became reality. Even outside being elected, we ran a great campaign (I was on the back of three buses!) and I put some of our campaign achievements in my election recap post.
The gravity of this achievement has really come home to me in the past few weeks, where we now have a Climate Strategy Advisory Panel at Council, which I lead, as well as at the last Council meeting, Cr Sarah Thomson and I put forward a (successful) motion on climate initiatives to be considered for the $14.6m Better Off Funding Plan and looking into a climate targeted rate during the Long Term Plan.
In addition to Council, I took on the role of Chairperson of Go Eco after being on our board of trustees for three years. I am so grateful to our former Chairperson, Robert Moore - the board culture we worked towards makes our board meetings something I am always looking forward to. We rounded off with our AGM in November which was a wonderful celebration of our organisation and those who work towards our shared goals.
I also started a blog with some friends of mine - Kirikiriroa Metro - to provide an outlet for interesting, thought-provoking ideas on how we design our city, particularly around climate change, decolonisation, and the communities we build. While only starting it at the end of October, we’ve got over 100 subscribers, and our three and a half articles1 have been read 1,300 times.
The less obvious
Behind the scenes, I’ve been working really hard on my health this year2. That may sound ironic considering the aforementioned COVID-19 and long COVID, but I have also had some health wins too:
I was reading through my childhood medical notes - purely out of curiosity (they’d been uploaded to my online medical portal as a big scanned PDF) - and I found a note diagnosing me with scoliosis. Upon mentioning this, my doctor sent me for an x-ray to see if that was the cause of my chronic back pain. As it turns out, my scoliosis had more than doubled from when I was 15 (20°) till now when I am 30 (43°). This might not seem like good news, but this prompted me to see a physio who specialised in chronic pain. For the first time in five years, I’ve actually made progress with this! 🎉
I had a similar break-through with my hearing loss - I got re-tested and confirmed it also had gotten worse but I have tried some medication for Ménière's disease which seems to be reducing my tinnitus to almost unnoticeable levels 🎉🎉
Anyone who follows me on Twitter, you will have likely seen me complaining about IBS and the low FODMAP diet for the past two years. It’s an extremely restrictive diet to work out if particular foods are causing or making your IBS symptoms worse. I finished 2022 being able to eat pretty much everything I had previously cut out - which feels like a huge, huge, huge win 🎉🎉🎉
I also made a conscious effort, both in 2022 and 2021, to invest in my hobbies and ensure that I have more balance in my life. A big motivator for that was working in the COVID-19 response and needing for that work to not consume me - something which I’m sure I will still need across the next three years. Outside of my favourite hobby of all (buying fabric and doing nothing with it), these were a few of my projects this year:
Top-bottom, left to right:
My ALMOST finished singlet (About Spring by DROPS Design)
New pair (geddit) of pyjamas (Loungewear Set by Common Stitch)
The first knitted piece of clothing I’ve ever made that’s not a hat, socks, scarf, etc (Outdoor Love by DROPS Design)3
Hemming trousers - I hemmed at least three pairs of trousers this year and Mum hemmed a suit jacket + pants I bought as well
I mended this tomato jumper that I got off TradeMe - it’s by this Australian brand I love called Variety Hour
Two hats I made as an engagement gift for friends (Best Friend Hat by Purl Soho)4
A top that I ended up giving away (fabric doesn’t drape enough, and that pink wasn’t quite right for me) but served as a good practice run for the pattern (Ruffle Sleeve Top by In The Folds). I’m now remaking it in a beautiful silk
A scarf I made for biking in the summer to keep the sun off my neck. You can see me wearing it in our Christmas Day bike ride video
And my final crafting triumph goes to the two bat costumes I made at midnight the night before our Council Christmas party - winning the title of best dressed. It’s amazing what you can do with some hot glue and googling the shape of bat ears.
I also made a real effort to spend time with the people I love - finally visiting our friends in Queenstown (who I made the hats for), going to my other friend’s wedding in Christchurch and then giving them a tour of Hamilton on their honeymoon, putting on a midwinter Christmas dinner, and a garden bee for my birthday. My colleagues at the Waikato DHB also really came through this year - whether it was doing fun things like an office-wide bake-off or getting me a beautiful leaving gift. I really treasure their ongoing friendship so much - they were the backbone of my survival in 2022.
So it wasn’t all bad. We’ll skip over the failure of my tomatoes this summer, but my banana palm, despite all odds, is still thriving in tropical old Kirikiriroa and maybe 2023 is the year I get plums, peaches, apples and bananas on our fruit trees. I enter 2023 with gratitude for the people still here, my mentors, friends, and community, a renewed emphasis on the importance of rest, and the opportunities in front of me.
Here’s hoping 2023 will be kinder, but with just as many good things to celebrate.
‘A half’ because I wrote an introduction that is not a real article and is mostly made up of memes.
I talk about these things because I want to break down the stigma about disability - it is not an invitation for unsolicited medical advice.