Sally and I realized pretty early on that we were not going to get our Christmas cards out on time. We got a late start, unfortunately, and it was all downhill from there. This despite the fact that we decided not to write an actual Christmas Letter.
Casa Cabeza, December 2021
What can you do?
I get that sense that folks don’t always love these letters. I mean, you want to tell everyone, “Yeah, we’re doing great, and thanks for asking…” but if you make it too great, well, now you’re just bragging. It’s one thing to acknowledge the blessings of a happy, healthy family. It’s something else entirely to detail your once-in-a-lifetime African safari to acquaintances you’ve barely seen in the past decade or more. And then, too, I still have enough friends who are either in the military or just getting out that I seemingly never know where anyone lives. And so here we are.
2021 was a good year for Casa Cabeza, though it was also a year full of challenges. The pandemic receded enough that we were able to live something like our normal lives -- mostly -- but now, as we head into 2022, things are suddenly worse than ever. Like you, we’re hoping to get through it, though this latest round serves as a rather stark reminder that sometimes events just aren’t in our control.
The good news, if you can call it that, is that this latest strain of the coronavirus appears to be so incredibly virulent that there is literally no escape -- and therefore no need or use for quarantining. The government told us as much with their recent message, noting that they’re not going to shut anything down this time regardless of what happens with the country’s caseload count. This is perhaps in part because it appears that this latest strain puts something like 56% fewer people in the hospital overall -- that’s my personal math based on a recent report that COVID original recipe created ~2.25x as many hospitalizations per case in New York early in the pandemic -- so fingers crossed, but this may yet be over before we know it.
Maybe that’s wishful thinking, but if you’ll recall, experts originally predicted that the pandemic would slowly get both wider-spread and less deadly until we reached something like an equilibrium with the virus similar to what we already have with many extant coronavirus strains worldwide.
Here’s hoping.
Speaking personally, I feel like we’ve been exposed so many times now that it’s hard to worry about one more. I am and always have been an essential worker in the City of New York. I can’t do most of my job from home, so I’ve been in the office constantly, mostly via public transit. My oldest daughter lives in a New York City dorm room most of the time, and my youngest goes to a large public high school, while my wife teaches fitness classes to the public at large. We are exposed.
And honestly, if that’s not been your experience, then realize that you’re having a very particular COVID moment. Many if not most people have had to work through this thing. For those of us working essential and/or public-facing jobs, this hasn’t been one long work-from-home day in our pajamas. It’s just been regular life amidst a relentless public freak-out. Exercise, eat right, take care of yourselves, and get vaccinated, but for the love of God, let’s stop pretending that lockdowns either work or are a good idea.
Reality is that we’re all locked down until we’re not, and it’s those times that spread the virus. Besides, people need people, and mental health is just as important as physical health. We’re paying lip service to this reality right now, but friends, we need to actually live it.
Mental health matters. Or, to put that another way, we all need to find a way to be better people every single day of our lives.
So. Sally lost her job twice during the pandemic. We were fortunate in that we had enough money stashed away that we were able to build a small fitness studio in our garage, and with that, Sally was able to continue working even after all the gyms shut down. But it was slow going there for a good, long while, and when Sally finally got a new job -- her first full-time job since our kids were born -- it was something of a revelation.
I honestly hadn’t realized how hard being a mostly stay-at-home mom had been on my wife until she went back to work. This is a woman with a bachelor’s degree from Boston University and a masters from Columbia who used to ask me to do everything that was even moderately technical around the house. Not because she couldn’t figure stuff out but because she got out of the habit and then just stopped trying. But that changed once Sally went back to work. She’s again become a more confident, more capable modern adult, and it’s been a wonder to watch.
The downside of Sally’s working full-time is that she now works most evenings, such that I myself have had to start doing most of the cooking, grocery shopping, and kitchen-work during the week. I’m not sure how we would have managed this if I’d been in the office five days/week, or if we’d still had two kids at home who needed to get taken to things, but as it was, we’ve just been busy. The good has definitely out-weighed the bad, but I don’t mind telling you how happy I was to get a little break here for the holidays.
I alluded to it earlier, but Hannah graduated from Trumbull High School this year and started at Manhattan College. She is now a STEM major at a well-regarded Northeastern engineering college with the workload to prove it. My sense is that for as much as she enjoyed getting out of the house, the sheer workload shocked her. Among other things, Manhattan’s standard course load is fully 18 credit hours. By way of comparison, that’s one more class than I took at West Point back in the day.
Hannah made it through finals okay, and she remains committed to majoring in either Chemistry or Environmental Science, so that’s good. However, I was surprised to see how relieved she was to be home for Christmas, though that most certainly did my heart some good as well. I don’t know how many more years we have where Hannah feels like our house is still her home, but I find myself quite grateful for this particular one.
Hannah’s departure was harder on her sister Emma than it was on anyone, but I also think that Emma blossomed a bit as she got out from under her sister’s shadow. Among other things, I’ve ever seen her this social before. She and her friends attended football games together this fall and then established an informal movie club. I helped her put a list of movies together for the group, and now they’re over to each other’s houses constantly to work their way through them. Emma also joined her high school swim team this year -- finally -- and she’s recommitted herself to both singing and dance. She practices constantly, especially her solo.
That’s a laudable change if I ever saw one.
I myself am doing okay. It was fun this year acting as both the editor and managing partner for As For Football, but it was also a Hell of a lot of work. We grew the business a good bit, and I’m proud of our success, but as I said, I was also more than ready for the break once football season ended.
I also swam a good bit… right up until the local YMCA closed their pool after condemning the pool deck. I told myself that I would take a month and focus on training for ski season, but that month will be up tomorrow, and I’m still not sure how I’m going to get back into the swing of things. Meanwhile, it’s rained so damned much in Vermont that half the ski trails are bobsled tracks, and the other half are closed outright. It turns out that training for ski season can really help you tackle the ice, but I’d still prefer decent conditions. As of this writing, next weekend looks vaguely promising, but so far every prediction of snow has turned to rain as it’s gotten closer.
Still, I feel good overall. Blessed and lucky with my family and my career and like the fruits of my labors have paid off with my hobbies and side-hustles. We’ve managed the trials of the last two years, and now, I think we’re set up well going forward. I’m personally headed out to Colorado late next month to ski with my classmates, while my wife is planning a yoga retreat, and Hannah is headed back to school soon enough. After that, we’ll be well into the New Year for whatever that brings. I’m optimistic.
Casa Cabeza, December 2021
Life is good. We wish you and yours the very best.
Happy New Year!
Dan, Sally, Hannah, & Emma
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