New Year’s Eve always puts me in a reflective mood. I’ve always felt this is a day for looking back to remember the previous year while preparing for the next trip around the sun.
A few years back, I started compiling a list of things I’d done in the previous year. This has become a bit of a tradition, an exercise in reminding myself what I’ve accomplished, where I’ve been, and how I’ve grown.
With this in mind, here are a few things I did in 2022:
- met the first female Vice President of the United States
- walked my mother down the aisle during my little sister’s wedding ceremony, danced and got drunk at the reception, and gave a toast at the rehearsal dinner
- wrote, produced, and directed my own short film
- helped produce a horror film
- hosted a film premiere in my home town for the community who made my life possible
- finally caught (and survived) Covid-19
- quit a job
- got fired from a job
- hired employees
- fired an employee
- started dating again, then almost immediately stopped dating again
- walked in Fourth of July Parade
- flew home to attend a music festival featuring all my favorite bands
- took an impromptu road trip from Chicago to Cincinnati with a complete stranger in the middle of the night
- watched my best friend knock ‘em dead on stage at USC
- got high in front of my mom
- finally got over a girl I’d been hung up on for quite a while
- had a “State of the Union” conversation with my dad
- filled out post cards and wrote letters to potential voters in preparation for a consequential election
- heard a candidate for Mayor of Los Angeles outline a pretty unconvincing plan to address the homelessness crisis
- helped build a Hollywood actor’s workshop from the ground up
- had dinner with friends at The Magic Castle
- ran bottle service at an impromptu nightclub built in an empty parking lot on skid row, all while listening to Tiesto and The Chainsmokers perform
- visited the house where Halloween was shot
- watched the football team from my hometown make it all the way to the Super Bowl
- helped organize a reunion of some of my high school classmates
- served Jeff Goldblum vegan pizza
- hung out in Kyle MacLachlan’s driveway
- went to a film premiere and the afterparty on the roof of the Academy Motion Picture Museum
- shook hands with a Nobel Prize winner
- revisited some of my favorite TV shows from childhood
- attended a Zoom cooking class with a bunch of my co-workers
- saw a few absolutely towering acts of theater
- cheered on the winning team in Game 6 of the NBA Finals
- helped a friend move into his first house
- visited The Mustard Museum in Madison, Wisconsin
- helped produce a short film starring two Broadway legends
- ate lunch and made conversation with said Broadway legends
- joined the folk band
- completed The Artist’s Way with a group strangers
- finished the first draft of a (really good) novel
- built a sandcastle on the beach
- wrote and recorded my own songs to send out in my Christmas cards
- accepted that I finally had to let go of a few people who once meant the world to me
- made some new friends, some good choices, and some pretty good art
Here’s to more friends, more art, more madness, and more hope in 2023…
joshua chamberlain 