My hopes for 2022

I'm not a high hopes kind of gal. 

Not me. 

On the continuum, I fall somewhere between guaradedly optimistic and guardedly pessissmistic. If I'm being honest, the leaning is generally towards the guardedly pessismistic end of the spectrum. Still, this year I'm choosing to put a smiley face on things and go with guardedly optimistic.

Despite the gerrymandering, despite the voter suppression, despite all those state legislatures itching to overturn perfectly legitimate election results, I'm hoping for a Blue Wave election this November. The alternative is too ugly, and way too frightening, to comtemplate.

But just in case the un-contemplatable comes to pass, I hope that the January 6th Committee is able to complete their work before November, and that those responsble for last year's unspeakable assault on democracy are held to account. 

I hope that we turn the corner on covid. And if this takes the deliberately unvaxxed coming down with awful cases to bring this about, well, so be it.

I hope that we finally start waking up to the reality of climate change.

I hope to spend more time reading and less time doom-scrolling onthrough Twitter. (It is so damned hard to resist.)

Even though I'll miss them (most of them, anyway), I hope that all the folks I see every Thursday at the Resource Center at St. Francis House find a place to call home. A place with a locked door, a clean bathroom, their own "stuff" around. Where they can raid the fridge whenever they feel like it and watch whatever they want on TV. A place where they can get a good night's sleep without worrying about rats, cold, and robbery (if they sleep outside), or about chaos, germs, and robbery (if they sleep in a shelter).

I hope we have at least one snowstorm that slows things down for a bit. The type of snowstorm where I stand looking out the kitchen window while my tea brews, then snuggle up in a comfy chair, tuck myself in with an afghan my mother made me, sip my tea, and read James Joyce's unfathomably brilliant story, "The Dead." (That is, I hope this if no one experiencing homelessness ends up freezing to death or run over by a plow.)

I hope I get to go somewhere. (So far, tentative plans: Long Island in January. Maine in February. Tucson in March. Dallas in May. Dare I even wish for it: Ireland in September...)

The Red Sox play the Twins on Patriots Day, and I hope to be there. (My favorite game of the year by far.)

While I'm on the subject of the Olde Towne Team, I hope the Red Sox have a wonderful season, and that David "Big Papi" Ortiz is elected to the Hall of Fame.

Speaking of halls, my stairway and downstairs halls, and my bedroom really should be painted. After all, I already picked out the BR paint color and got a new duvet and sham set from Pottery Barn. I really hope to get this done. And soon.

That rowing machine I bought in October 2020? I hope to finally start using it. Maybe if we have that big snowstorm I'm hoping for. 

I hope to thread together a series of short stories about the life of a priest and turn it into more of a novel. (They say 'write what you know about,' and I know next to nothing about what it must be like to have a vocation to the priesthood. But I do know a lot about growing up Irish Catholic in Main South Worcester, which is where Dan Breen, my fictional priest bud, hails from.)

I hope that the world becomes a better place. Kinder, gentler, less fractious. 

I hope that all your resolutions work out - personally, I don't make any - and that all your hopes come true. 

Happy 2022!