Merry Christmas, everyone! Or if you prefer, Happy Holidays!
I apologize that this post is a day late. That’s because I really struggled to decide what I wanted to write about. I could sit here and tell bad Christmas jokes or do a corny rendition of “The 12 Days of Christmas.” I also could complain about how my fantasy football team has had a small village go on the COVID list this week while my semifinal opponent’s team is the picture of health.
Those would have been fine topics, and my most loyal readers certainly would have tuned in. But then, I realized that it’s been a while since I talked to you from the heart and let you know about what I am really thinking. You all know how much I like being real, honest, and genuine, so if you don’t like those things, stop reading now. On this special occasion, let’s do that, while also giving ourselves kind of a 2021 report card.
In short, my 2021 feels like the state of the Griswolds’ house at the end of Christmas Vacation…except there are no people, no Christmas lights, and no singing of the national anthem.
First off, spending Christmas alone sucks. I had wanted to go somewhere, but the emergence of omicron and the fact that all school employees will have to be tested twice a week following the break made it far too risky. I stayed in touch with my family. I know I could have gone home to them and that they would have welcomed me with open arms, but I’ll be making a very special trip there next summer and it just wasn’t financially feasible for me to make two trans-Atlantic trips in a six-month period. Plus, you know, COVID restrictions and the harsh reality that you have to do a COVID test basically just to leave your house at this point. Of course, my fear of COVID testing has been well documented here, but the good news is that I took the first two PCR tests of my life this month and both were negative! But my fear–and the threat of COVID–are very real, too real to risk it at a time when cases are getting worse in pretty much every country.
I accepted that reality and really didn’t think being by myself would bother me. I received some very nice student Christmas gifts, such as alcohol (LOL), chocolate, shampoo and body wash made from real Czech beer, and a jar of personalized apricot jam with my last name spelled perfectly. The gifts definitely made things much easier.
But once the day came, I saw the Facebook and Instagram posts of people being so happy and enjoying time with family and friends. It was only then that it hit me. And it hit me like a freight train. Last year, I had friends to celebrate it with here in Prague, but that wasn’t possible this time due to many of them moving back to the States or other greener pastures.
Going from having friends to celebrate with to having no one was a stark reminder of one very uncomfortable truth.
2021 was a real struggle.
Now, to be fair, we do need to look at the good. I am healthy. My loved ones are healthy. I have a good job. I have a roof over my head. I have clothes to wear and food to eat. As much of an inconvenience as COVID is, it really hasn’t hit home for me the way it has for other people. I can only hope and pray (and perhaps knock on wood) that continues.
These things are great, but as you know if you’ve read this blog, I hold myself to a very high standard. I did not meet that standard this year. Mistakes were made. Opportunities were missed. Some decisions were not as well-thought out as they could have been.
On a personal level, I’m not proud to admit that I just coasted through most of the year. My diet and exercise goals didn’t happen. My meditation plan was a bigger bust than Allen Robinson has been this year on the fake gridiron. While I did do a good job at times with my mental health, I too often neglected it, making me more stressed and much less patient with everyone and everything. It prevented me from being the best version of myself and forced others to see a version of me that I hope no one ever sees again.
With my physical and mental health not in the best place, some of the important relationships in my life were negatively affected. Whether it was with friends, acquaintances, or coworkers, I went backwards on the social front in a BIG way. To be fair, this occurred in large part to friends moving away but also due to other reasons I’d rather not discuss here. Sometimes, social anxiety wins, and boy, did it blow me out this year.
On the professional front, I changed jobs and swapped out English File and Business Result for Scratch and Kahoot. For those who don’t know the education lingo, I went from working with adults to working with children. So far, it’s been an adjustment to say the least. If the powers that be at my school are reading this, all I can say is that I’ve tried my best and look forward to working harder, better, and smarter in 2022.
Overall, I’m not satisfied with my year. At all. While I do tend to be very hard on myself about pretty much everything, it’s really difficult to say that I’m honestly in a better place than I was one year ago. Now that’s not to say good things haven’t happened. There have been some very positive changes in my family. I got the first two COVID shots and hope to get the third one very soon. I made a much better effort to learn some Czech. I paid my bills on time and stayed in good standing with the authorities (and there are a lot of them here in the Czech Republic). I was blessed to have some wonderful traveling opportunities that I would re-live in a heartbeat. I stuck to my alcohol and drug abstinence pledge 99.9 percent of the time, although the expensive champagne and chardonnay I received from students might make that slightly more difficult in the days and weeks ahead. By the way, I was talking to my colleagues at the school Christmas party, and they couldn’t believe that I have never smoked (and will never smoke) weed in my life. I’m not going to lie: I am proud of that and want people to know about it. OK, we’re rambling, so let’s get on with it…
The bottom line is this: I left too much meat on the bone this year. And for those of you who have seen me eat chicken wings, you know I don’t do that. But the past is the past. I can’t go back and change it. All I can do is re-commit to my goals and make myself better in the new year. I still have a lot of thinking to do and plan on writing another blog with all my New Year’s resolutions. This year, no one really held me accountable for anything, and I think that’s a big reason why I slipped. I had that false sense of security because I knew no one would be up my rear end if I had a bad day or a bad week. But if I write them on paper (or in this case, on the computer), you all can hold me accountable and I can hold myself accountable.
2022 is a year in which I will have to make critical life decisions. I’m not going to get into the details of those choices, but these are not decisions such as where to order out for dinner or who to start in the flex spot in fantasy football. With all due respect to what’s left of my fantasy football team, these decisions are going to be really, really important and are going to come up pretty quickly. I need to make sure that my mind is in the best place for me to make the right decisions, not ones that are based on emotions or recency bias. Just thinking about the decisions is stressing me out, so let’s table it until the next blog.
I’m not a quitter. Unlike my beloved Tampa Bay Buccaneers in last week’s abomination against the Saints, I’m going to keep fighting. As Clark says in Christmas Vacation, we’re going to press on. We don’t need Bing Crosby or Danny Kaye to do that. Although some Tylenol would be nice, so Clark, if you do find it, could you send some my way?
And when Santa squeezes his bottom down my chimney come Christmas 2022, wherever that chimney is, he’s hopefully going to find the jolliest…uh, person this side of the nuthouse. But I don’t plan on going anywhere near the nuthouse, so hopefully he’ll just find a much jollier, much happier Mike.
If I work hard, treat people the right way, and make the right decisions, he most certainly will.
Czeching Out the World of TEFL 