My Personal Evaluation of 2018

It’s no surprise to those around me that I’m a planner. I tend to be forward looking, thinking about the opportunities and challenges that are known and hedging against the unknown. I’m cautious, but generally optimistic. I embrace innovation and change as avenues toward improvement. In order to plan, I need time to reflect on the past and how my actions, inactions, and decisions have played out over the year. I would say that 2018 was a mixture of good, not so good, and the downright horrific.

Anyone who has adult children knows that your love and deep caring about their welfare doesn’t end when they reach adulthood. Parental love never diminishes and therefore the worry never ends. So when one of my children hurts, I hurt. The difference is that I no longer exercise control over the response to a crisis. I no longer have the right to put a bandage on the booboo. And nor should I. That is the very definition of adulthood: the ability to take responsibility for oneself. As a parent of adults, I can only offer my wisdom, love, and support. Above all, I am silenced. I don’t feel at liberty to openly share the fear, the pain, and the worry I experience with the entire world. This was one of those years when I often had to cry alone, pray alone, and hope against hope for a good outcome. Enough about what I can’t control and on to areas where I’m the master of my ship.

First, I failed to improve my Spanish in 2018. I didn’t practice everyday as planned or even once a week. I chalk this up to the distraction in spring where major workplace changes, precipitated by false accusations had to be dealt with. That emotional fight left me too exhausted and a little too demoralized to work on my Spanish. Although the issue did get resolved, the whole ordeal sent me to the therapist couch for three sessions and two key people running for the exit. They understandably left our department, finding employment elsewhere where they thought they might be better appreciated and treated. On the bright side, to relieve stress, I found a new happy place in Chinese and Taiwanese soap operas on Netflix and I’ve picked up some Chinese phrases and learned a lot about modern Chinese and Taiwanese culture.

On the health front, I’ve had all my screenings, including testing my DNA with 23 and Me. Thankfully, I’m no worse off than the year before. I have a little peace of mind that I don’t have DNA markers for some of the more frightening health concerns that I was worried about. With the exception of my avocado oil potato chips, I’ve been pretty good with my 80% Paleo diet. I haven’t lost all the weight I had hoped to, but I have been consistent with 35 minutes of exercise on the treadmill or bike five days a week and the addition of weights three of those days. My Fitbit shows that I reached my 10,000 steps a day almost daily, and I’ve hit my 250 steps per hour, averaging 10 out of 12 hours each day. I continue to fall short in the sleeping department, rarely hitting my seven hours. I consistently get between 5-6 hours each night. I’m not sleepy during the day, but the experts all say I’m falling short in this area. My lack of adequate sleep and my refusal to give up on my avocado oil potato chips have likely prevented me from losing all the weight I want to.

It’s been a good year financially if I ignore the recent stock market downs on my retirement accounts. I’ve been a big saver this year, increasing an already adequate emergency fund, adding to my 403b, and starting a separate Roth IRA. I’ve made big dents in the student loans and I even paid off my Lexus. Being on an automatic savings system takes away the urge to spend that money on other things. It’s as though it doesn’t even exist, so there is no temptation.

I’m glad we traveled to Charleston, South Carolina for our family reunion this past July. It was my first time in that state where the greatest number of people who share my DNA reside. That’s according to Ancestry.com. But Ancestry disappointed me when they sent me an update on my DNA this year. I was happy to be 48% Nigerian for the last several years. But now they say I am only 3% Nigerian. Instead, I am 34% Benin/Togo; 31% Cameroon/Congo; 13% Ivory Coast/Ghana and 16% (Great Britain, Scotland, Norway and Sweden). That gigantic shift really threw me off, especially since I know a lot of Nigerians and they share my love of education. I was planning to visit Nigeria as a heritage trip. But not anymore. This change really messed with my thinking about my heritage and personal pride in it. When I’m ready, I’ll invest some time in learning more bout Benin, Togo, Cameroon, and Congo as I did with Nigeria.

I don’t think I need to reflect too much on the politics of 2018 except to say that I am glad that the Democrats took over the House and I am especially happy that we were able to flip the 25th District, getting rid of Republican Steve Knight and putting in Democrat Katie Hill. That was huge.

The myth of living in one of the safest areas in the country was shattered by the mass shooting at the Borderline where many of my students spent so much time. My own kids frequented that club when they were college students and beyond. Our community suffered through that shooting followed immediately by wildfires without being able to catch out breath. Collectively, it has been an emotionally exhausting few months. Personally, it has been an emotionally exhausting year.

Overall, 2018 is not a year that will go down as one of my favorites. There were too many periods of turmoil, stress, pain, and disappointment. There were moments of joy, learning, and victory, too. Progress was made on a few fronts, but not nearly enough to tip the scale into the favorite year category. However, I am optimist about 2019.