For those of you who know me well, you know I’m bad about being a “card” person. I’m a “gift” person, and I grew up in a small family (me and my mom) that weren’t big on sending cards. I know as a part of academic society, and as a person with friends, I need to get over that. But alas, I still have not, and I realized far too late that I was supposed to do cards. I didn’t. So instead, I’m devoting this blog to being a holiday card of sorts. I know you can’t stick it on the fridge without printing it, but hey… I’ll get there.
First I want to do a victory lap because today, at day 335, I am 30 days from making my goal of blogging every day from one birthday to the next. Since my last record was 18 days, I’m pretty proud of this year’s effort. I’mma make it!
Now, then, to the holiday card.
To my wife Julie, to my mother, to my co-workers in AIMS and my totally awesome boss/mentor/partner-in-esports-crime Glenn Platt, to my Esports team members and our coach Chad, to my students, to the people I’ve known along the way in my education and my career journey, all my love. I think of all of you often and fondly, particularly as I think about the holidays.
It’s been a very bizarre year.
It’s been bad, in that the world is falling into chaos. I fear politics. I lock my car door when I’m out driving and sometimes I don’t stop at certain places just because I feel like the risk isn’t worth it. And I’ve seen a great deal of apathy drifting into my work in Academia (not my apathy– the apathy of others).
But it’s also been great. Julie and I celebrated our first year in our home, our first full year of marriage, and we’ve built a nice little family of us-mom-and-the-dogs. It’s great. Life is peaceful and safe at home, even when it’s not out in the world. That’s a true blessing that I’m thankful for every day.
I finally had my job position converted to tenure track, and I’m now working in a different college (same University– there are “colleges” within the university, and I now work in the College of Creative Arts). The Esports Program I co-direct with Glenn has had great success, including our Overwatch team winning the first ever Overwatch NACE National Championship. The students received the Miami President’s Medal as a reward. It was pretty amazing.
My book is coming out “soon.” We’re in the final stages of getting the manuscript print ready (soon I get to make an index, which might be awesome, perhaps).
I achieved some but not all of my goals for the year. I finish it better off than I entered it.
But I think the real thing that’s happened for me this year is that I’ve started to really understand how life works. I guess it takes 40 years to be able to do that, or I’m a slow learner. But I’ve come to realize that much of what we worry about from day-to-day isn’t worth the worry, that it’s either out of our hands or is treated as more consequential than it really is. The things that matter– those are the ones we sometimes neglect.
This holiday, look at your life and think about what really matters. Then embrace that, and try to push away all the noise from around the edges. Live your life.
I love you, everyone! Happy Rusev Day!