Executive's Perspective - January Voice 2022

And just like that … It’s 2022

Somehow, here we are again – at the beginning of another calendar year. I have a love/hate relationship with January. I have this weird feeling of losing a sense of accomplishment. I just made it through a year! I completed the list, checked the box! And now you want me to do it … again? I feel like there should be a week off in there somewhere. A week between years. A gap week. Where time doesn’t count. A time that I can celebrate making it through the year – reflect, grieve, rejoice. A chance to process the year without moving directly into the next one.

Starting 2022 feels a bit like living in Groundhog Day. Cases are up, vaccination rates aren’t where they should be, and people are tired, angry and so over the word “pivot” even the Friends meme isn’t funny anymore. The “new normal” isn’t exactly new, I don’t remember what anyone’s nose and mouth look like, and I have hand sanitizer tucked away in so many places I feel like a (very clean) pack-rat.

And yet … January has arrived again.

I’m actually sitting writing this while my daycare is closed due to a COVID case while I anxiously wait out my kids’ quarantine period. I’m equal parts angry, sad, worried, numb and worried some more. It’s like an emotion casserole. We’ve spent the last two days cancelling Christmas plans, attempting to reschedule small family gatherings, and trying to avoid all of the photos of kids with Santa online as we threw our “Donuts with Santa” tickets in the trash.

My kids are too young for the vaccine and were exposed. My heart is breaking with feelings of inadequacy – for not being able to protect them, for not being able to watch my almost-three-year-old bask in the magical wonder of Christmas experiences, for not knowing how exactly my seven month old is feeling. I’m mourning memories that aren’t being made while trying to keep their lives as normal as possible … while checking their heads for fevers every 15 minutes. Nothing about the end of 2021 and start of 2022 feels like a fresh beginning.

I know as I sit here, I’m privileged in a lot of ways. I have time to take at work. My kids have no pre-existing conditions that put them at a high risk for serious infection. We have a loving support system that checks in on us often and can aid us in a multitude of safe ways. All I’m losing is a Santa sighting neither kid will remember and a belated Christmas by a few weeks. In the end, it’s small potatoes. Others have lost so much more.

But January. January.

It’s supposed to feel shiny and new, and it feels more tired and overdone. This year my “resolutions” (minus losing that COVID weight I’ve been putting on faster than Netflix loads the next episode) look different than years past. They are filled with ways to find more time for self-care as I recognize my mental energy is totally tanked. “Do something new!” is replaced with “Do something and know that’s enough.”

The start of a new year always brings out those people that demand that this be your BEST YEAR EVER. The year you’ll do it all, while losing weight and writing a novel. Let me be the person that tells you – it’s okay if it’s not. It’s okay if you need the year – or at least the start of it – to be about recalibrating… again… and just getting through.

The pandemic isn’t over. And this? All of this – it’s hard. It’s hard on everyone. So you’re not alone, you’re not doing it wrong, you’re not slacking. With every new January comes a new February, and March … and April ... And new opportunities for Easter baskets, and fireworks, and costumes, and soon enough, Santa sightings. And amid all the drudge?

There’s hope.

Caitlin Pusateri is executive vice president of the Rockford Chamber of Commerce.