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M. M. Adjarian

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Reflections on Life, Art + Writing
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M. M. Adjarian

  • Bio
  • Blog
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  • Fiction

Dear 2024

December 25, 2024 Maude Adjarian

Dear 2024,

Tick, tock, tick, tock. Time is running down on you and I am singing: goodbye goodbye and good riddance. What was it Mark Zuckerberg said about things that move fast and break other things? That was you blasting through my life this year, all speed, muscle and wicked surprise. Yes, 2025 will bring a reset, though likely not without wreaking even more havoc than you did. A new pandemic’s coming, says Bill Gates. So is another ‘08-style economic crash, says Warren Buffett. And God help any American not born a straight, white male Christian with regime-approved political and birthplace credentials. Out of the frying pan, into the fire.  

 It was non-stop with you even before you became official last January first. First it was that post-Christmas 2023 call about the abnormal test result that would put my life on hold for the next eight months. A day or two later it was word that the contract you thought would continue uninterrupted until March but that had initially been promised as indefinite hadn’t been signed. Approval would come and the contract would be extended—grudgingly—to March. If 2023 was the warning, you were the fulfillment. By the roll of dice I couldn’t see, you took me past everything certain then set me down on the knife’s edge of my own mortality. Now dance, you said. Dance.  

You were a sly one masquerading first as a drama queen rather than the unforgiving agent of chaos. It took time to see your real face. And when I did, nothing about you or what you sent my way was ever minor, simple or remotely laughable. Drama queens are just lonely hysterics in search of attention; you were an escapee from an institution for the criminally insane. I prefer my dramas singular and straightforward, like a vodka on the rocks with a splash of grapefruit. But you complicated everything, cramming drama after drama down my throat, sometimes all at once.

Thief and plunderer, you robbed me of time and vitality. What remained never seemed to balance out. When I had one, I nothing left of the other. Everything needed new compromises and a willingness to explore new avenues to accomplish a fraction of what I’d intended. But even that seemed to lead to something I never expected: electronic communion with kin-spirit writers who accepted—even celebrated—who I was and the losses I’d survived.

Hardship wasn’t the way I hoped I’d find them; maybe that’s beside the point. Everyone I met had a story much like mine. If it wasn’t just about grief or brokenness, it was about both these things and more. We cared enough to talk to each other. We cared enough to listen and to worry when one among us wasn’t present to speak their art. Because the one unspoken thing we all knew was this: that—as novelist Alice Walker once said about the act of writing—the life we save is our own.

Fortunately, I can speak in past tense about you because your mayhem has passed and I can breathe again. Now comes the cleanup: from the paperwork blizzard that covered every inch of desk space in my house; from the endless storm of breakages, mishaps and malfunctions. Things are better now and I am fixing things or replacing them. But in a strange, dark decade that began with a pandemic no one expected, stability is fragile. I can just look beyond the life I know to the Middle East, Ukraine, South Korea, France. Pick a place, anyplace and it’s crisis, crisis, crisis.

Yet somehow I can still feel a wary gratitude: not necessarily to you, but more to things I cannot see and do not understand. For all your mess and mishigas, so much more could have gone wrong. Like not finding decent health insurance and the right team of doctors to treat a medical problem no one in my family had ever had. Or being forced to raid every last financial resource and go into the kind of debt from which no recovery is possible. Or not landing the job I needed in just the nick of time.

Good things—like my insurance and the job that came only after hundreds of rejections—didn’t just come my way because you felt like giving them to me. I had to push past crippling fear and fight. Hard and sometimes to exhaustion. This may be another of your mercies, especially as I look ahead—with not a few misgivings—to 2025. I have never taken anything for granted. But neither have I been pressed to battle for what I had. My lesson from you? Appreciating what’s been earned is one thing. Defending it with courage I may not feel is another.

Someday I may see past what you brought enough to offer the thanks I cannot give you now. The best I can do is say this: you broke me and in the breaking, allowed me to remake myself. Maybe that acknowledgement, along with a willingness to move forward into the unknown, is all that’s really needed.

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AUSTIN WRITING LIFE BLOG ARCHIVE

  • May 2025
    • May 26, 2025 Camera Obscura May 26, 2025
  • April 2025
    • Apr 28, 2025 My X-Files Life Apr 28, 2025
  • March 2025
    • Mar 24, 2025 A Tale of Two Gardens Mar 24, 2025
  • February 2025
    • Feb 22, 2025 The Justice of Rest Feb 22, 2025
  • January 2025
    • Jan 13, 2025 To B or Not to B... Jan 13, 2025
  • December 2024
    • Dec 25, 2024 Dear 2024 Dec 25, 2024
  • November 2024
    • Nov 10, 2024 Stars in Blackout Nov 10, 2024
  • October 2024
    • Oct 14, 2024 Curmudgeonness Oct 14, 2024
  • September 2024
    • Sep 8, 2024 Reading Cards & Stars Sep 8, 2024
  • August 2024
    • Aug 6, 2024 Cat Ladies Strike Back Aug 6, 2024
  • July 2024
    • Jul 14, 2024 The Serendipity of Sarah McLachlan Jul 14, 2024
  • June 2024
    • Jun 2, 2024 Anatomy Lessons Jun 2, 2024
  • May 2024
    • May 1, 2024 A View from the Edge May 1, 2024
  • April 2024
    • Apr 9, 2024 Sisterhood of the Titanium Breast Clip Apr 9, 2024
  • March 2024
    • Mar 10, 2024 Mile High & Away Mar 10, 2024
  • February 2024
    • Feb 10, 2024 Tempus Fugit Feb 10, 2024
  • January 2024
    • Jan 15, 2024 Painted City Jan 15, 2024
  • December 2023
    • Dec 26, 2023 Different Shades of Brain Dec 26, 2023
  • November 2023
    • Nov 26, 2023 Call of an Ancient Inland Sea Nov 26, 2023
  • October 2023
    • Oct 22, 2023 Helen Mirren & the Self-Loving Art of Swagger Oct 22, 2023
  • September 2023
    • Sep 30, 2023 Rockin' the Wall Sep 30, 2023
  • August 2023
    • Aug 26, 2023 Portland NXNW Aug 26, 2023
  • July 2023
    • Jul 6, 2023 I, Not Robot Jul 6, 2023
  • June 2023
    • Jun 11, 2023 Stripper Pole Tango Jun 11, 2023
  • May 2023
    • May 21, 2023 Bat City Blues May 21, 2023
  • April 2023
    • Apr 24, 2023 One Love & the Rites of Spring Apr 24, 2023
  • March 2023
    • Mar 18, 2023 Seattle Memory Underground Mar 18, 2023
  • February 2023
    • Feb 20, 2023 Domesticity 101 Feb 20, 2023
  • January 2023
    • Jan 24, 2023 Finding the Shaggy Jan 24, 2023
  • December 2022
    • Dec 28, 2022 A Woman of Greens Dec 28, 2022
  • November 2022
    • Nov 27, 2022 The Poverty of Being Middle Class Nov 27, 2022
  • October 2022
    • Oct 30, 2022 Ballot Box Slacker Oct 30, 2022
    • Oct 1, 2022 Cat Ladies & Me Oct 1, 2022
  • September 2022
    • Sep 18, 2022 Something Like Home Sep 18, 2022
    • Sep 2, 2022 A Broken Earth & Her Mirrors Sep 2, 2022
  • August 2022
    • Aug 15, 2022 Paddling Alone Aug 15, 2022
    • Aug 1, 2022 Flowers for a Requiem Aug 1, 2022
  • July 2022
    • Jul 17, 2022 Strange Carnival Jul 17, 2022
    • Jul 3, 2022 How My Garden Grows Jul 3, 2022
  • June 2022
    • Jun 19, 2022 What Now, Generation X? Jun 19, 2022
    • Jun 1, 2022 Resurrection in the Cathedral Jun 1, 2022
  • May 2022
    • May 15, 2022 How Dare We May 15, 2022
    • May 4, 2022 Water Baby May 4, 2022
  • April 2022
    • Apr 24, 2022 Drag Day Afternoon Apr 24, 2022
    • Apr 9, 2022 Mothers of the Revolution Apr 9, 2022
  • March 2022
    • Mar 30, 2022 Bone Digger Mar 30, 2022
    • Mar 19, 2022 Pasta & the Theory of Everything Mar 19, 2022
  • February 2022
    • Feb 27, 2022 Eying Winter Feb 27, 2022
    • Feb 12, 2022 Queer but Not Quite Feb 12, 2022
  • January 2022
    • Jan 17, 2022 Companions at my Table Jan 17, 2022
    • Jan 2, 2022 Hangry Jan 2, 2022
  • August 2017
    • Aug 7, 2017 A Tortured Nirvana Aug 7, 2017
  • June 2017
    • Jun 23, 2017 Reading "Shapeshifters" Jun 23, 2017
  • May 2017
    • May 1, 2017 All That & Siri, Too May 1, 2017
  • March 2017
    • Mar 16, 2017 Starting Over, Starting Out Mar 16, 2017

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