Author: Graeme McMillan

When I say that I haven’t really used Facebook in a long time, it’s worth putting that into context: the last update I made there prior to last week was noting my divorce had been finalized back in early 2019; my profile picture and cover photo hadn’t been updated since 2015. It was that last fact that brought me to the platform last week, along with the fact that I had time for such things thanks to my holiday break from work.

It was actually a passing comment from Chloe that put the idea in my head weeks earlier, with the two of us comparing how rarely we used the platform; we’d been discussing how best to reach comic creators we didn’t know for work, and I mentioned that my Popverse editor had suggested social media introductions as first moves. Try Facebook for some of the older creators maybe, I suggested. Facebook? You haven’t used that in years, she said, you still have a Grumpy Cat picture as your cover photo.

It was true, I did; a graphic in support of the Marriage Equality Act, which had become law some seven years prior. Maybe it was time for a change after all, I reasoned.

That said, I didn’t do anything about it until I had to take a selfie for my passport application weeks later. Something about the unsmiling, purposefully flat expression — you’re not allowed to smile in passport photos, in case you didn’t know — amused me, so I made it sepia toned quickly and threw it up as my first update to Facebook in years, letting the platform see my beard for the first time. It started getting liked immediately, to my mild horror, with someone comparing it to a “Stalin look.” Suddenly, I remembered why I hadn’t posted anything there in years, and regretted the slight return, as understated as it actually was.

Now that it’s almost over, it feels fair to say that 2022 has been a strange, and at times nearly overwhelmingly difficult, year. It’s different in that from last year, which felt shockingly, breathtakingly oppressive in its determination to remove things — jobs and income, in particular — and see how I’d fare; this year has seen a lot of good mixed in with the bad, adding up to a dizzying, confusing experience where I’ve found myself uncertain about how I was feeling in any given moment, and whether I was unhappy, or simply overworked and exhausted and just ungrateful for things I should really appreciate given my experience in 2021.

There’s been much I purposefully haven’t written about here, for an army of reasons: it’s felt too personal to share, or too fresh to re-examine, or not-just-my-story-to-share. Almost all of that has been, if not negative, then at least Not Really Good, and the kind of thing that leaves me contemplative and a little unsteady. There was one week at the start of the summer in particular that feels fictional to recount, now, filled with things piling on top of each other that simply shouldn’t occur next to each other, yet did. 2022 has felt, at times, like a lesson in extremes and how much we can bear at any given time.

As I look ahead to the next twelve months, I find myself unable to imagine what lies in wait in a way that feels different than usual. My tradition at this time of year, even in the shittiest years, has been to imagine the last year as something I was leaving behind and starting fresh with something new. 2022 refuses to go out the way, I feel. There’s a sense inside me that the flux and uncertainty about the world is going to continue into 2023, as if the story of the year isn’t finished with me yet. When midnight rolls around on December 31, it feels as if the message is less Happy New Year and more To Be Continued…

Well,the holidays weren’t what we expected.

To be fair, as you’re reading this, we’re still in the middle of the holidays — it’s Boxing Day, although the rest of the world doesn’t really follow that British tradition, in my experience — and I’m writing this even earlier, on December 23rd. (Secrets behind the blog!) But, already I can tell: this is very much not going to be the Christmas we were hoping for.

This became obvious yesterday, as I write, when we found out that Chloe’s grandparents, who were going to be visiting for the week, were stranded in Chicago after flights were grounded because of weather. That was the start of the day, literally a message Chloe got as soon as she woke up, and before too long it was followed by the news that they wouldn’t be able to get here at all for Christmas, with the airline refusing to rebook flights until after the holiday. In fact, they were almost stranded in Chicago for a few days, with no chance to return home until the very end of the day (9pm their time; they’d been there something like 13 or 14 hours by that point) and every piece of news unclear or quickly contradicted to that point.

As our plans imploded due to weather in Chicago — really, what were we going to do, now that all the, “we can do this with Grammy and Grandad” ideas were suddenly out the window? — the weather in Portland decided that there was no point going above freezing at all, which is a problem in a house with heating and insulation as bad as this one. Blankets, layers, and hot water bottles became a must as it quickly became clear that going outside to do groceries might be a significant undertaking, while last-minute gift shopping could be a luxury we couldn’t afford.

It’s been, as I’ve said before, an odd year and an odd December to date. Perhaps a strange, weird Christmas is what comes of all of this. Tis the season.

Yeah, I’ve been more quiet than I’d have liked over the last month again, and at a time of the year when I’m usually much more vocal about the joys of the season. In my slight defense, a significant reason for that has been my undertaking a daily Advent Calendar series for Popverse that ate up a really sizable portion of my time for the first two or so weeks of the month, so… maybe I’ve actually been as verbose as usual, just elsewhere…?

That said, I’ve struggled to be as festive as I’d want to be this year for all manner of reasons, both real and imaginary. The month has sped past far quicker than I would’ve wanted, and I feel as if I haven’t really had the time to indulge in the usual festivities (pun maybe intended): I’ve barely listened to Christmas music, and I feel like I came to the traditional playlist of holiday movies a week or so later than usual. I didn’t even manage to get Christmas Cards printed to send out in time, despite drawing the card for the first time in years before the end of November. What was I doing with all that time? (Working, for much of it, is an answer.)

In a way, this feels entirely appropriate for the 2022 holiday season. It’s been an odd year, that has at times felt overwhelming with things happening and at others, as if time itself was getting distorted by outside events and expectations from external forces. This past month has felt like all of that on a loop, for reasons I couldn’t fully comprehend, but the upshot of that is that I’ve been ignoring this site, again, in order to focus on the important things like “my loved ones” and “staying employed.”

It’s not that I haven’t had anything to say, I promise; and, as I head into some time off — my first Christmas vacation time that isn’t just “not getting paid and I’m a freelancer oh no” in more than a decade! — I’m going to try to find some time to say it. For real, this time.

If there’s a surprise gift that keeps giving when it comes to being a full-time staff writer for a website after ~13 years of being a freelancer, it’s that I have paid holidays and paid time-off for the first time in a long time. I am, I confess, unsure quite what to do with this new and wonderful experience.

It’s not as if I didn’t know this was part of the whole deal; I mean, I was paying attention to the job offer, and can read, I promise. It’s simply that my brain sped past that when weighing up the pros and cons of taking the gig, in favor of things like “a guaranteed wage every month that is unlikely to fluctuate wildly through no fault of my own” and “health benefits, no really, health benefits, can you imagine?” All of this was happening at the beginning of the summer, far enough away from everything bar July 4 (and even then, it was going to take effect after then), so holidays and what they’d mean for me just wasn’t something even vaguely on my radar.

Now, of course, things are different: not only am I about to get to take Thanksgiving off without being thankful for losing the money that I could be making otherwise for the first time in… well, 13 years, I guess, but I’m also facing down the start of the holiday season knowing that I get to take basically half of the month off at the end because Chloe’s family are in town and, again, I don’t have to worry about losing money as a result. On the one hand, I feel somewhat shocked at this turn of events; on the other, I feel as if I’ve accidentally slipped into a far more cultured, kind world that doesn’t punish me for wanting a life outside of “content creation.”

That said, the problem with full time jobs is that they find whole other ways to punish you, but that’s neither here nor there right now…