The Adventure of 2023

In which I reflect on the year that was...

I awoke in a cold sweat in the early hours of Boxing Day. I was staying at my Mum and Dad's for the first time since last Christmas and found my heart racing after an anxiety dream. These are not unfamiliar to me, usually some real-world based scenario that causes great anxiety and can leave me feeling unsettled for much of the day. Sometimes my brain struggles to develop original programming for dreams and so will broadcast a repeat. This dream was a replication of a dream I had exactly a year before and was based around going on teaching placement and being completely shit. Due to dream logic being non-sensical, my brain was able to fill in the gaps it had last year because said experience is now in the past rather than in the future. 

As I said, anxiety dreams can leave me feeling unsettled for a fair portion of a day when they occur. Not this time. I blinked my eyes open and realised I was in my old bedroom at my Mum and Dad's house and my waking brain was able to process what the sleeping mind had created. This anxiety dream was a ghost, an echo of what I had been feeling a year before when I'd last slept here. 

I began 2023 with my first time teaching in a mainstream school for many years and though it had some challenges it was nowhere near as horrendous as I feared and I smashed it. I completed my teaching qualification and smashed my assessment. I had a job interview for a teaching position and smashed it, delivering a presentation that was so good I was surprised as it was happening. I then taught my first term in my very own class and while I'd never claim that everything was perfect, I think I was still really good. 

Frankly, at the start of the year, I never thought I'd be anywhere like where I am now. My one goal was to qualify and get my teaching career going once and for all. I always assumed it would be a struggle, that these things might happen by the skin of my teeth. Sure, there have been plenty of challenges along the way but the year has been much easier and smoother than I ever would have imagined. 

I am not, and probably never will be, a confident person. But I have learned so much about who I am this year. For so long, for pretty much all my life, I've only ever seen what I am not good at and failed to recognise what I am good at. I'm imbued with a new sense of self and a new sense of purpose, a level of fulfillment that is unfamiliar but very welcome. 

On a more general basis, 2023 has been a mixed year. For most of us here in the UK it's been better than the last few years and there's a sense that we've come out the other side of the pandemic (that's not to say it's not still affecting us but it is certainly having less of an upheaval on our everyday lives). The country itself feels like it is on its knees after nearly fourteen years under Conservative governments. Every public service is underfunded and overworked. The Tories continue to be a disturbing combination of utterly inept and horrifyingly evil- their current policies seem to revolve around being as inhuman towards their fellow men as possible and doing everything they can to help climate change along its way.

I think the signs at least are more positive. As various Conservative MPs say and do immoral things and lose their seats it is becoming more and more clear that the general public has had enough and that the government will be changing hands in the 2024 election. Whether a change in government will actually bring about meaningful change remains to be seen- Keir Starmer's current strategy appears to be about convincing former Conservative voters that he is a slightly less right-wing Rishi Sunak but one hopes this is an election strategy rather than a sign of the policies they will enact. It seems incomprehensible that any government could possibly be worse than the current one. Either way, it's probably going to be some time before we see much change.

Globally, the human race continues to find ways to be horrible to each other. Russia are still murdering Ukrainians and Israel are murdering Palestinians at a disturbing new rate. Extreme right-wing politicians are making gains over much of the world and new governments in many countries are worryingly facist-looking. The average global temperature has reached a record high and people across the planet have faced the effects of climate change more than ever. Politicians have meetings, set targets and then fail to do anything meaningful to do anything about it. It's easy to feel very bleak about the state of the world and I think there is no question that in the relatively short term, humanity will have to deal with unprecedented change. But as always, I end the year with hope in my heart. Just because things seem bad right now doesn't mean they always will be. Humans are resilient and we can achieve wonderful things when we work together. 

Sometimes it feels like there is pressure to have plans for the new year, and to set resolutions whether you give up on them after a few weeks or not. I felt like I made great strides in 2023 and hope to continue to develop in 2024. There are a few minor specific things I plan to work on but I suppose if I have a resolution it is this: find joy in every day. Thanks for reading my nonsense this year and I'm going to try more and less to stick to the every-other-week schedule. See you next year!