we're still climbing, see us try to cross the street

[morbane]

I haven't been good at this lately or perhaps ever but some unexpected (ed: and completely unidentifiable) catalyst has spurred me on to make a record of some important things in the last two years.

March 2020-January 2021: My close friend P arrived back in the country as we went into lockdown and came to stay with me.

2020: Fortress New Zealand. Many lockdowns, many periods of relative normalcy except at the borders. My office started a writing group, which was great, but I mostly remember it now for the strange disconnect of meeting together in a room to critique each other's poetry when that would have been absolutely unthinkable for a lot of the rest of the world. I did a lot of work for the editing team that is adjacent to my own team, of which the absurd peak was possibly staying up all night on April 20 working on law relating to cannabis.

Mid-2020 to third quarter: A certain fandom-related obsession involving vindictiveness and spreadsheets. Don't ask, it really consumed me at the time. It did not make me better at spreadsheets. Or R.

November 2020: My grandmother, my last remaining grandparent, died. I am so grateful that she was not alone - my aunt was with her.

First quarter 2021: A small but significant wave of retirements at my job: three people left who had trained me since my start in 2015, and gave great depth to the team.

Mid-2021: Joel and I went on a holiday to Picton and Christchurch for our ten-year wedding anniversary, and it was lovely, especially Picton. My temporary manager tapped me to be the lead trainer to a new hire. That probably doesn't sound like a huge deal? But it was a huge deal to me. D, however, was an utterly delightful person and the easiest possible new person to train - smart, good-humoured, even-keeled, able to articulate when he was struggling so that we could look at other approaches.

Late 2021: My temporary manager finished his term. One of my other teammates stepped up to manage, thank goodness.

January 2022: Spent a week in Auckland and saw my parents for the first time in way too long. It was good.

February-March 2022: Brazenly asked my job if I could work remotely from Auckland for two weeks because, again, that had been too long without parental catch-up. Now it was my turn to stay with P, in her beautiful art deco flat in the shadow of beloved Mt Eden | Maungawhau. I want to write a longer post about that sometime but it was such a good and cherished time, even though Omicron was getting a terrifying grip on the country and Russia had just invaded Ukraine and there were antivaxxers besieging Parliament. I stayed up until stupid hours and spent all my free time not taken up with family in reading works in fffx & a friend's novel and it was a strange golden time. Also we still can't figure out how I lost my wallet.

May 2022: New temporary manager left to pursue his dream librarianship career. !!! No one at work wanted to do it.

You can probably see where this is going.

So less than a year elapsed between:

Me: oh wow, training a new person is such a big responsibility, I hope I don't let them down!
Me: expletive expletive expletive I guess if it's meant to be fixed term I can do a slightly better job in the next six months than someone external who has managing experience but no understanding of the team's work

So now I'm a manager. I immediately had to conduct performance reviews with 10 staff whom I thought of as peers. And conduct hiring interviews. And take part in the massive office change initiatives which started the same day as managing. And I suspect that all of my party talk will be MANAGING this year, which does not make me any more boring than I usually am at parties.

Also that delightful new person who gave me such a confidence boost last year - just left to pursue HIS dream job. Damnit.

June 2022: Coming back to quite a different tone... We had to put Ria down. She was acting more and more like a little old lady cat, but she was doing great until suddenly she wasn't. That hurt a lot - we were privileged to have her for almost ten years since we got her at ~6 years old from the shelter. She emanated more love than the sun emanates light. I know she knew she was loved, too.

August 2022: I want to remember this too: I had a really nice weekend away with my close friend S and a couple more of her friends on the shores of Lake Tarawera. That also could do with a post, but it won't get one.


I'm generally making a hash of this, but to anyone who's read this far, thanks for reading. I'm glad to connect with you. Tell me what colours you picture when you picture a sunset (more than one variety of sunset is welcome).

Comments

[azurelunatic]

I think about Alaskan sunsets with vivid neon pink and orange clouds.

[morbane]

Fantastically dramatic! I love my jagged skylines, but I look forward to the next time I can see a sunset across a really big sky.

[china_shop]

I can't picture anything, but it probably happens over an ocean. Or a mountain.

♥

(Btw, I still have that mattress topper if you want it. No pressure! I just randomly thought of it.)

[morbane]

♥ I do want it and it's been on my mind. What price and let's arrange for me to pick it up.

And I appreciate your ocean or mountain setting contribution.

[china_shop]

I'll PM you. :-)

[snickfic]

*HUGS* for whatever catalyst inspired you to this post. <3

I immediately think of pink and orange too, really dramatic, with some wispy clouds streaking through.

[morbane]

Thanks! Hugs back! I didn't put that very well, it's just that the thought of "I should make a post" that recurs and recurs and recurs finally somehow gained enough momentum.

The wispiness is good. Love a feathery bright orange cloud against grey or pale blue backdrop.

[corvidology]

I think we've all been too busy 'getting on with it' to make a lot of posts about specific things in our lives, even if they are important 'benchmarks.'

My sunsets have a lot of red in them but then I'm picturing the highly changeable weather over England.

[morbane]

Yet somehow you manage! It's impressive. Yeah, I enjoy the deep red and gray sunsets too.

[carbonel]

I still remember one of the more disappointing but educational sunsets I experienced. I was a junior counselor (seventeen or so) and was on a river canoe trip with a bunch of campers. We overnighted at Luddington, and had made an effort to get there in time to see the sun set over the water. Which it did, with absolutely no fuss or interesting colors, because there weren't any clouds. That was when I first realized that clouds were necessary for good sunsets.

But when I picture a sunset in my mind, I picture all the colors of the day -- pink and orange and yellow, tingeing to blue and purple as the light disappears.

[morbane]

Ha! I enjoy the very mild sunsets with a lot of very pale yellow shading to pale blue in the sky, but agreed they don't usually reward a special trip or setting.

[crantz]

I'm glad to have read this post!

As for how I picture a sunset - I picture a Manitoban sunset, obviously, deep golds, deep magenta, light purples at the top going to dark purple, and tons of horizon.

[morbane]

Lots of very royal colours!

[crantz]

we are rich in atmospheric phenom!

[tielan]

Hello! Welcome back!

When I think of sunsets, I think mostly orange and glowing gold with shades of purple and blue - I think of what I call "angel's wings" clouds - here the wind has chopped the cloud formations into a bunch of smaller clouds in rows and the light of the sunset hits them just so.

[morbane]

Thanks! Those are gorgeous formations.

[daisyninjagirl]

Congratulations on the promotion!

I think you are, actually, pretty good at getting people to do what you want, and you've got the basic idea of "if you have to shout at people, then you've already lost."

You'll do great. :-)

[morbane]

Thank you! That's very practical and reassuring.

[daisyninjagirl]

I think of summer sunsets over the hills outside my house. The blue of the sky starts slowly to get golden, and there are some high wisps of clouds turning rosy peak, and the green of the hills yellows out until it fades to blue.

[morbane]

Yes! And the really pretty summer ones seem to go all the way through March when we're lucky.

[schneefink]

Whoa, good luck in your new role!

Hm, generally the sunset in the direction when I look out of my window but from the perspective of outside the house, various different shades of light grey - yellowish - orange - pink - dark pink. Not the most dramatic I have ever seen (those were probably various sunsets over the sea) but familiar and always pretty.