Misguidance Counselors – 2022: The Recap

by Marilyn Haines

Happy (almost) New Year, Campers! 

Do you know what day it is? We didn’t either, but for your own education, we checked and it is Tuesday, December 27th (at least if you’re reading this right when it hits your inbox, which we’re sure you are). There are four days left to heal yourselves, consult your spiritual advisors, and make peace with yourself and your loved ones in spite of what may have transpired in the year of our lord, 2022! Or, you could just white knuckle it, keep delaying the hangover with a respectable, low-grade buzz, and tolerate/enjoy the agenda-less time you might still have left between now and 2023. Follow your bliss, campers! 

In this issue, Marilyn provides a review of the roses and thorns of her own year. We’re reflecting now, but we can’t wait to rip the rearview mirror off and zoom away into the New Year with you. 

LYLAS,

Misguidance Counselors

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Can you believe 2022 is already circling the drain? What a year it’s been. It feels like just yesterday I was hauling myself, bleary-eyed, to dim sum on New Year’s Day, setting the tone for the year ahead with a can of Diet Coke and an immeasurable amount of scallion pancakes. 

2022 was about barely vibing, not at all thriving, and merely surviving. I’m fine with that because WE MADE IT, KIDS, and we even finally got a new SZA album. The last 12 months have brought along their fair share of wooden rollercoaster ups and downs. I’m sure you would report the same. In case collective emotional whiplash soothes you as it does me, below are a few categorical summaries of how my 2022 went. 

Relationship (with self)
It was my [age redacted] birthday in February. I got my hair balayaged to its lightest blond yet in an effort to mask the wirey grey hairs that sprout near my temples like lightning bolts (if lightning bolts served as a reminder that you’re marching ever closer to death with each passing day). Somehow, between using all of my remaining disposable income on increasingly expensive basic needs and an overall decline in feeling interested in maintaining my personal appearance, I haven’t colored my hair since. 

I didn’t re-up on any Botox injections this year and society hasn’t discarded me! My mom continued to ask if the wrinkle line on my forehead was a scar. It kind of is, actually, if you consider years of daily furrowing to be little micro traumas resulting in this ever-more-present fracture line between my brows. 

Relationship (with partner)
2022 came on strong when I lost my boyfriend at a New Year’s Eve party and had to go looking for him in the street. He was mad about a Lindsay Lohan song being played at a loud volume at the party :(  We spent the next several months doing exposure therapy, though, and I am proud to report he has worked his way up to being able to tolerate up to an hour of music recorded by washed-up child stars, heiresses, and real housewives. 

Also, we went down to City Hall to become domestically partnered in July, which was a fun and interesting experience – you have to fill out paperwork that confirms you are not related, and you get to take a neat little paper number as though you’re at a meat counter and not legally binding yourself to another person. 

A couple next to us was in line to get full-on married. The groom was visibly wasted, asking if he could “pay a thousand bucks to bring her back” should he change his mind about his blushing (from embarrassment) bride. I think about this not infrequently. 

Family
In the last three months, my grandma died and both of my dogs died. Separate incidents, gratefully. I am holding out that all three of them will haunt me a bit. This is what happens when an attachment disorder mingles with a childhood interest in the paranormal. I thought perhaps the tumbleweed barrelling down the street in front of the funeral home after my grandma’s visitation might have been her, but it seemed like too violent a manifestation to be her. 

The people in my family who remained alive only threatened me with a few reasons to pen an overwrought family drama script. My parents saying they had no reason to live after the passing of the aforementioned family dogs still might make it into a screenplay, though. Stay tuned! 

Health 
After initially dodging COVID, it got me down bad in June. I sequestered in my bedroom and in my feverish state, began watching the Bravo reality show Southern Charm from the first episode. 

There was a certain kind of (southern?) comfort in having it on in the background ‘round the clock. It provided a mental puzzle each time I awoke, unaware of how many episodes I had slept through – was the person on my screen a new character or an original cast member who got free plastic surgery in exchange for tagging the doctor in their Instagram stories? 

Had I slept through the entire series and had it begun playing all over again or was this yet another episode where a leathered man was misquoting Faulkner and soaking himself from the inside out with bourbon? When lacking lucidity, I cannot recommend Southern Charm enough. 

Work
The best part: I got a promotion! The worst part: I got a promotion??? 

Travel
Most memorably, I traveled to Hudson, NY, for the first time – a real feat after being in New York City for nearly ten years. It was the kind of sweet little weekend trip that people who only buy in-season produce and have KitchenAid stand mixers take. 

On the train to Hudson, my incredibly kind Airbnb host texted me with an offer to pick me up upon arrival. I asked her which vehicle I should look for, to which she responded “a green kia soul but you won’t be able to miss me! I will be the lady with a large bird on her shoulder!” 

She came with one cockatoo on her shoulder but had an additional three back at the property. I did some reading on cockatoos and related to them a bit when I learned that if the birds don’t get enough attention, they become depressed and neurotic, and sometimes even harm themselves. Birds, they’re just like us! 

Hopes for 2023?
My fingers are crossed that my right eyebrow will finally regrow itself into a normal shape. I have hoped for this annually since 2010 due to an unfortunate overpluck in April of that year. I was too committed to my role as Erma in my university theater production of Anything Goes. The show was problematic enough without the loss of my eyebrows. 

Having tried everything from brow growth serums to castor oil to shoving my forehead against a speaker while MUSIC FOR PLANT GROWTH played, I am going to really focus on what might stimulate those follicles. This means taking up tap dancing again in the hopes that the hair will be jostled out with each shuffle ball change. 

As a society, we need to normalize grown women being amateur tap dancers, so I want to do my part. It is an activity for the well-adjusted, not just for those in the midst of crisis looking to reconnect with their inner, much more creative and gifted, child! I will not say which of these categories I fall into because I am also trying to be less binary in my thinking. I will say I am keenly aware I will need double or triple the sports bra support than I did last time I was dancing regularly. Let me know if you have any suggestions, but serious input only (please be a D cup or larger). 

And, lastly, if I never end up learning to French braid my hair this year, I will not be too hard on myself. Anything goes! Maybe this is my year! 

2022: The Recap by Marilyn Haines, @marilynhayward

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