It can be easy to be pessimistic as we end yet another year of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially as the Omicron variant runs rampant and communities re-institute confinements, curfews, and outdoor mask requirements. The desire to wish away and write off yet another year lost to abnormality is strong. But as with last year, I’m choosing to reflect on those times that I lived my life well this past year. Trust me when I say there were plenty of times when I didn’t—times when I felt hopeless, lost, lonely, and adrift; times when I could only watch Netflix and snack; times when I hated myself and was loathe to get out of bed; times when I was so angry that I wanted to scream until I lost my voice. Some of this is just being human, some of it is living in a different culture, some of it is getting older, and some of it is part of living with a depressive and anxious brain. Regardless, life is constantly providing me with new challenges both of my design and from random chance.
I started 2021 in my family-in-law’s apartment in the Pyrenees, where our heater broke after a huge snowstorm. While this could seem like a bad start to the year, I disagree. I learned that I can make a killer woodstove fire, and the cat, who spent the day bundled in a nest of blankets, learned how to ask me to build a fire. I also went ski mountaineering for the first time on January 1 and later skinned up the slopes of a ski resort, which would normally be open, but was closed due to the pandemic. To ski on nearly empty slopes was eerie, but also most likely a once in a lifetime experience.
What was unexpected about this year?
- I started this blog in February, which launched the most sustained period of writing in my life, as I am writing both here and working on several personal essays. Read a review of The Happy Runner, where I explain how the book inspired me to start the blog.
- Sometime in the first quarter, I stopped drinking alcohol. I didn’t drink at all during the lockdown in 2020, mostly because cans of beer and bottles of wine were too heavy to carry all the way home along with all the other groceries for the week. While I wasn’t drinking heavily or even moderately afterwards, it was just enough to make me suspect that it was affecting my mood. What started as more of a personal experiment has now become just normal.
- I started a new job in May, leaving behind teaching and going back to editing. In the US, I used to work from home a lot, which I loved at the time. But social isolation from cultural and language barriers and the pandemic made me crave working on a team with actual colleagues. I’m grateful for my fabulous new group of hilarious and brilliant coworkers. Post-lockdown me prefers to work in the office, which was a surprising discovery.
- In November, I also stopped drinking coffee after I drank a small pot of coffee (normal) followed by a particularly intense anxious episode (less normal) before meeting some new people (difficult). I had intended to completely cut out caffeine gradually, but I noticed a huge improvement in my overall level of worry and general what I would call “buzzy alertness” with just switching to a cup of matcha in the morning. Now, you might ask, “why don’t you just drink one cup of coffee instead of, say, three?” The answer is that I just can’t. I will pour myself cup after cup of coffee until what I have made is gone. If I only make one cup, I will make more. I don’t seem to have the same issue with tea so far.
- I read more this year than I probably have since I was a kid. I’m pretty sure I’ve read over 20 books this year. I had never been a morning reader, preferring to read before bed. I don’t even remember why, but I started reading for about an hour in the morning while drinking my tea (now, but coffee earlier in the year). I’ve found that it’s a really nice way to start the day.
Same as usual, yet always different
It wouldn’t be my life if I wasn’t running, hiking, climbing, skiing, caving…all those things that are foundations of my identity. This year, I probably ran more than I hiked. Running is my first love, and I have really leaned on it this year as it helps me feel grounded, calm, and stable. So, I ran this year. I ran in Casa de Campo (the large, forested park near my house), along the river, in the mountains, to work, next to two different oceans/seas, on an island, while traveling, and in my dreams.
In May, I completed my goal of running the Cuerda Larga in the Sierra de Guadarrama.
I also spent a lot of time hiking in this mountain range and other locations near Madrid. Here are just the ones I wrote about:
- The Pyramids of La Pedriza
- La Peñota
- Morata de Tajuña to Chinchón (The town where Wes Anderson was filming this summer. No, I didn’t see anyone famous.)
- La Najarra
- Siete Picos
Los Lecherines cave in the Pyrenees 
Climbing Peñalara 
A pyramid in La Pedriza 
Las Machotas outside of El Escorial 
On my way to Chinchón 
Galacho de Juslibol outside of Zaragoza 
In the Pyrenees 
Walking through a Roman aqueduct near Albarracín 
The dolphin of Mascún Canyon, Sierra de Guara 
Hiking Puy de Dôme 
Los Cerros outside of Alcalá de Henares 
On Siete Picos, Sierra de Guadarrama 
Camping in the Pyrenees 
Among the lava in Lanzarote
In addition, I climbed the Classic Southeast Gully of Peñalara, which is the highest mountain in the Sierra de Guadarrama and went hiking a few times outside of Madrid in the Pyrenees and the Sierra de Guara.
It´s difficult for me to separate traveling from hiking and running, since I generally do both while traveling. I went to France twice, the first time was a whirlwind tour of Brittany, where I only had time for running early in the morning. The second time, I went kayaking in the Gorges du Tarn and hiked two ancient volcanoes: Puy du Dôme and Puy de Sancy. I hiked through neolithic paintings, explored the town of Albarracín, and found some solitude at the Peracense castle. Finally, just this last month, I hiked more volcanic terrain on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands (which I will post about in January).
The most exciting part of the year for me, however, was in November when I finally got to get back underground after more than two years. I took an intensive vertical caving course, which had been one of my long-term goals.
Of course, there were some external, physical goals and many internal, personal development goals that I just couldn’t quite reach this year. But it’s hard to feel many regrets for those challenges I couldn’t meet because each one stretched me in different ways and allowed me to examine both what I am capable of and where I want to go. I’m already looking forward to seeing what next year will bring.
