Reflections on 2022

The human heart plans the way, but the LORD directs the steps.

Proverbs, 16:9

2022 won't go down in my memory as a good year.

The Fall of 2022 saw me in the hospital three times, one of which was for several days, all of which were for surgical procedures, one major and two minor.  The result of the first one was to move a chunk of my colon, after which I learned that I barely dodged colon cancer.  And I do mean barely. 

God's providence, as Pope Francis has stated, is always one step ahead of us.

I got in that situation by basically disregarding the advice on getting a colonoscopy, getting mine a full decade after they recommend you start getting them. That sort of thing is typical for me, but it nearly got me killed.

At the time of writing this, I'm still waiting to find out what's up with a thyroid nodule.  I've had two fine needle aspirations and still don't have a diagnosis, other than that something is odd about it.  The material has gone out for a genetic analysis, which will determine whether or not it's something to worry about.

The doctor feels it probably isn't, but she doesn't sound reassuring about it.  I strongly suspect that it probably is, so 2023 will probably kick off with another surgery.

I'm in pretty good shape overall for somebody who is nearly 60, and who will turn that age, God willing, in 2023.  So all of this has caught me by surprise.  I didn't expect it.

I also didn't expect surgery to take so much out of me, but it did.  I was beat up for weeks.  My digestive track still hasn't returned fully to normal, or at least to the status quo ante, and I don't think it's probably going to.  This isn't like a huge disaster, but it is different, noticeably so.

I was tired for weeks after the surgery, and punchy too.  I didn't really realize how much so until some time later.

One of the things about running a blog is you get to know some people whom you know only through that.  Two of those folks came in with well-wishes when I was ill, which I appreciate.  One of them, however, who was a well known outdoor writer, died very shortly after his last post here, which was one of those posts.  It sort of punctuated this in a way.

Everyone else in the family is healthy, and I'm grateful to God for that, although COVID 19 visited the house.  My wife fell ill with it, even after being fully vaccinated.  That cost her a vacation with her brother and our sister-in-law.

Being laid up interrupted by hunting seasons enormously.  I didn't draw for anything other than elk, but I did get out for general deer with my daughter.  We got up on deer right away when some inconsiderate person drove right through where we were hunting, costing us some good bucks.  No deer for 2022.

I went out elk hunting on the first day, which was right before surgery.  I was tired and lethargic going out, which I now can look back on and realize that pretty much described me for all of 2022 before surgery.  I didn't see anything.

I got out the last Sunday as well. Felt better, but saw nothing.

Just two days out of a long season. Post surgery, restrictions kept me out of the field for a long time.

That also meant that I missed most of the waterfowl season, and indeed, when I started back up, as I had missed so much, it felt like the season was starting.  Of course, it was not.  I missed sage chicken season for some reason as well, maybe working cattle.

All of which means that in some odd ways, 2022 was more about my office job than ever.  I worked like a dog, even working from home the Monday after I got out of the hospital, but for some reason, I really have less to show for it this year than I should.  Or that's how I perceive it.  A post surgery outlook, perhaps.

I didn't work cattle hardly at all this Fall, same reason, which emphasized the indoors again.

An odd thing for me has been the various references people have started making to retirement.

I'm not old enough, on the Social Security scale, to retire even at the early age, and I won't be for a few years.  All of a sudden, however, people are asking me about it and I don't know quite why.

One reason may be that when I came into the practice of law, I rapidly ended up in the litigation major leagues.  Lots of the lawyers I worked with were young then, which I guess I didn't appreciate, but htey were older than me.  This has been a common experience in my life.  I graduated high school a year younger than most people, and I've often been the youngest person in any one group.  Added to that, I've tended to appear younger than I really am for almost all of my life.  

Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained by a life that is just.

Proverbs

That's no longer quite as true, although men age at remarkably varied rates.  Up until going into the hospital it seemed very much still the case, although over this year my facial hair, in my case expressed by my mustache, which I try to keep bushy, and my sideburns, which I try to keep short, have gone white.

And I mean white, not gray.

That's going to make you look a certain age, no matter what.  Some men would shave it, but I've been wearing a mustache now continually since 1988, and off and on before then, so I'm not.  And every once in a while I'll mention shaving it and my wife, who has never seen me without one, will object.

It is a shock, however, when I see my firm official photo.  All my hair was dark brown then.  The hair on my head remains brown, with gray mixed in, but my facial hair is white.

Added in that, however, I think is this.  I've often been the youngest person in a group, as noted above, which means the rest of the group is older.  All the guys I graduated with from high school were a little younger than me.  When I started working, a lot of the lawyers I knew, worked with, and became friends with were several years older than me.  They weren't old, they were just older than me.

At that time, somebody graduating from law school sometime in the first half of the decade prior to you seemed like a long time.  Graduating in the late 1970s even more so, and it really is.  But for those from the early 80s, if you were 1990, that isn't really that long of time, except at first.  Over time, it isn't, and those people begin to pretty much figure you are their contemporaries, and vice versa, which you basically are.

A couple of years ago, one lawyer I worked with a fair amount over the years pulled up and retired to the southwest.  Another that I'd worked with much more, and whom I'd become friends with, fell ill, retired, and died nearly immediately.  He wasn't that old, just in his 60s.  I'd been all over the west with him on cases.  A mutual friend of both of ours, who is a good friend of mine, is getting ready to retire.  A judge I worked with as a lawyer up and retired.  A lawyer I worked against a fair amount had a heart attack and died.  A couple of longstanding business contacts I am close to retired.  A lawyer that I'm pretty close to and have known my professional career is fighting a serious disease.

I feel like I'm The Last of the Mohicans.

Or maybe Will Penny.

Anyhow, you get the point.

Perverse speech sows discord, and talebearing separates bosom friends.l

The violent deceive their neighbors, and lead them into a way that is not good.Whoever winks an eye plans perversity; whoever purses the lips does evil.

Proverbs.

The events of the year oddly worked into this.  You wouldn't think that the background noise of the times would impact you personally that much, usually, but they do, and often heavily.  The state went into the 2022 election so dedicated to Trumpite populism that it felt more like South Carolina in December 1860 than Wyoming in, well. . . ever.  Views circulated in the state that I've never heard before, with some of them bordering on the unhinged.  Candidates were elected who seemed to be Berserker mad at the entire population of the country and who were ready to dive into the population, broad sword drawn, until they emerged screaming on the other end.  

It was weird.

In that atmosphere, we elected a Secretary of State with thin connections to the State and a Congresswoman who has long connections with it, but whom will start off as a nullity and whom I predict will forever remain there.  The entire time, large percentages of the state, including many people who have not lived here long, looked back romantically on a state history and culture that never ever existed.

So here, I feel like Sitting Bull.

It was not only weird, but for a native, downright depressing.

Indeed, in spite of my Sioux reference, a better analogy is that this must be what it was like if you were a Westphalian of my age, but in 1932.  The country you were born in, for all its faults, is now gone and completely unrecognizable.  The past decade has been a mix of extremes on all levels, cultural and political, and a big section of the country is now supporting extremism for reasons that are hard to grasp.

Well, here's hoping 2023 is a bit better.

How much better to get wisdom than gold!

To get understanding is preferable to silver.

Proverbs.