2023 - how's it been for you?

Pawnless Endgame

Pawnless Endgame

Pawnless Endgame

Soldato
Joined
10 May 2004
Posts
12,953
Location
Sunny Stafford
It's one of those GD threads that we get every year.

2017 and 2018 were my last decent years, with my sister getting married (I was the wedding DJ!), bits of clubbing here and there, house parties, going to Disney in Paris for my 40th. I also got poached by another department, so work was on the up as well and I'm still with them in 2023.

2019 to 2022 was a bad run, so it wasn't just lockdown-related. Lost Grandad and Dad, and upstairs/loft was gutted by flooding which was a house insurance job. Also I nearly lost my eyesight and needed 4 eye operations to restore what little sight I had left.

2023 started with bad news: although my eyesight is back to 2018 levels, the eye tissue is weakened and it's my only eye. Roller coasters was my main hobby from 2007 until the lockdowns and my surgeon advised not to go on them again because sudden head shakes have a chance of damaging my eye. So it's a risk that I can't really take, so I sold my GoPro and called it a day. The majority of 2023 has been bliss though. Clubbing was my other hobby and a lot of the 1990s franchises such as Cream, Ministry of Sound, Gatecrasher and Sundissential stepped back up this year. Trancecoda (not a 90s brand) is also a great gig to go to because of the production. So clubbing is life now, and also meeting with people that I've known from pre-COVID and connecting with them again. One weird turn in 2023 is that my ex-girlfriend from 1996 contacted my parents as she still had their landline number and their address! She said she wasn't working, just volunteered for the church and asked if I was working myself and married etc. I saw those as red flags so I didn't follow it up. All-in-all though, 2023 was superb and I already got gigs confirmed for 2024.

Best years:

2001 - the clubbing honeymoon / uni life was great
2023 - the clubbing renaissance
1995 - joined 6th form, good music (Britpop, indie and dance)
2006 - got addicted to World of Warcraft haha, got onto the property ladder
1999 - got my 1st PC, went online, best ever holiday, '99 eclipse, run up to the Millennium

Worst years:

1997 - the year where NOTHING happened. Sheer lack of content, void
2002 - graduated then was on jobseekers so no clubbing
2009 - bad run of luck with being laid off (liquidation), losing Gran and electrical appliance all giving up at the same time
2007 - bullying at work, which never got resolved and we then folded anyway (same workplace as 2009 above)
2021 - losing Dad and that final really long lockdown
 
Probably one of the most stressful years at work. The rollercoaster of tech in the last year has not been fun. London feels like it has recovered fully from the pandemic at least so that’s great. So generally outside of work things have got better but in work things worse.

I built a new PC which has been awesome. I’ve got heavily into bbq’ing since I moved house in 2022 to somewhere that actually has a garden. It’s a real mental health booster to just chill in the garden with the bbq and a beer.

My kid has also been a real highlight and probably the most significant positive thing to happen when she was born in 2022.

I’ve also been spending a lot more time with my parents. They are getting older now.

I’m finding the way things in world are being more extreme towards good and bad rather strange.
 
This year was just work (which stagnated with a load of people laid off due to the construction industry being terrible- but not me), DIY, and then I got many pulmonary embolisms which I am still recovering from (but they didn’t kill me!) so 2023 was probably 3/10. No one died and we had a nice walking holiday in Cornwall.
 
We got the start-up I have been at for four and a half years over the line for major investment. Massive pay rise as a result. Apart from a week in Portugal, though, pretty much work all year. Going to carry 13 days holiday forward. Have had the occasional fairly spectacular weekend shenanigans, despite my age. Pretending to be seventeen still. A good year, but not great.
 
2023, the year of age related injury. My knee and lower back haunt me. I'm waiting for the ibuprofen to take the edge off so I can function, same every morning of late. :(

Edit - everything else however, is pretty good. Apart from the country, the government running it, and the general state of the world and it's leaders who seem to be content to run it into the ground to their own ends instead of the betterment of humanity.
 
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One of the worst years of my life, all down to health. But still here innit. It’s the old cliche but you really do take it for granted when you have it.
 
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Since covid 2021,22,23 have been pretty much nothing years

Maybe hybrid working is the problem, but I get a sense that people have pretty much given up. Case in point, last week I went to my works Christmas do. Town was dead, I was on a table with about 12 people, all looking bored to tears, texting on their phones. Couldn't wait to get home. This lad I know quite well constantly moans about being single, we were sat next to a table full of women, I asked him if he wanted to make a night of it, he said he wanted to go home.

Perhaps the cost of living crisis???
 
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