Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays 2022

Christmas is a season not only of rejoicing but of reflection. - Winston Churchill

 Hello all. Welcome back to The Disciplinary Couple’s Club.  Our (mostly) weekly on-line gathering of men and women who are in, or would like to be in, a Domestic Discipline relationship.  I hope you all had a great week.

 Thanks for joining me for what is likely to be the final post of 2022, or at least the final post before people start winding down for Christmas and, hopefully, some serious relaxation between now and year-end.  We’re sticking close to home this year, so maybe I’ll get bored and put out something else.  This year, I’m just going to play it by ear.

 There is something I really love about this particular Christmas meme.  It's peaceful, hopeful, and fanciful, all at once.  It symbolizes nicely what I hope Anne and I, and all of you, experience as 2022 winds down.

Last year taught me a lot about playing it by ear.  When I sat down to write my end-of-year post last year, we were a few days away from celebrating the season with family and friends, looking forward to taking our first post-Covid international trip.  We did manage to take the trip but, a few days into it, there was a very traumatic event back home.  But, I couldn't go home, because I got stranded in a foreign country with Covid, then spent the next couple of months recuperating. 

So, it’s fair to say that 2021 went out with a bang and 2022 got off to a very bad start. 

While it’s easy to cast aspersions on an entire year and blame everything on world events, in fairness I didn’t always put in my best efforts in 2022.  The previous year really was one of rebuilding and recuperating.  I was not in good shape, physically or mentally, after putting a pause on my career early in 2021.  I really didn’t have much choice when it came to slowing down and resting up. 

Unfortunately, that unambitious pace seemed to become my new norm and dogged me throughout 2022.  I did some fun and adventurous things, but it was sporadic and pretty unimpressive in comparison to the amount of free time I had on my hands. 

Yet, there undeniably was progress.  With the exception of the world in Ukraine, didn't the world seem just a little bit more rational in 2022, with people maybe acting just a little better to each other?

On the personal front, my overall health and fitness is much, much better than it’s been for at least half a decade and maybe more.  I’m again wearing the same size jeans I wore in college, and I’ve maintained that fat reduction for many months now.  I’m still too prone to binge drinking, but overall I had far fewer of those incidents in 2022 than before my retirement and, while I didn’t keep any detailed statistics, I think overall I drank quite a bit less in 2022 than in 2021. 

Significantly, for years and years, I’ve set goals to reduce my news consumption and also to focus on creating and producing more instead of just consuming.  While I didn’t perform at anywhere near the level I’d like, I did start doing some (very vanilla) writing for another platform, and it’s gone reasonably well.  For the first time in really my adult life, I’ve been regularly doing something creative that isn’t this blog. 

I also feel like the blog came back to life a bit in 2022.  It wasn’t looking great in 2021.  Some regular commenters stopped showing up. The monthly viewership went way down, after peaking in late 2019.  It was probably a mix of factors, one being the political environment and my own role in stirring that pot. Which I don’t, by the way, apologize for, given the seriousness of the situation at the time.  

 I’m really not sure how much political animosity contributed to the blog’s loss of viewers.  The biggest direct impact was probably from the fact that one popular blog stopped linking to mine in retaliation for me dropping a link to theirs.  A couple of other blogs that had been responsible for a large number of referral traffic were killed by their owners.  In fact, in the course of a little over a year, the blog lost its second and third largest referral sources.

 That downward trend hit its low point about mid-way through this year, and the numbers have been climbing back slowly but steadily since.  Not coincidentally, the upturn started around the same time I started trying to get back to a weekly posting schedule.  I can’t promise to maintain the more consistent pace in 2023, but I’ll try.

 Far, far more important to me than the total viewership, or even the number of commenters, is the number of regular, quality commenters.  That was another area that deteriorated for a while but reversed in the latter half of the year, with new commenters dropping in regularly and some previously sporadic commenters stopping by more regularly.  So, thank you J., T., KOJ, Kevin, MW, JR, Caged Lion, TG, Ward, DWC Fred, Belle, Brett, Red, Glen, and others for dropping by regularly or at least every once in a while.  And, a big thanks to ZM, Alan and al, who so often seem like my brothers separated at birth.

 There was one thing that changed a lot in 2022 and was very significant.  I used to get almost depressed when year after year, not all that much seemed to change or deepen in my own DD dynamic.  Year after year we’d talk about stepping up her assertion of power and authority or about her becoming stricter and more consistent, and year after year it wouldn’t happen.  After we became empty-nesters and still nothing changed, I started to wonder whether the dynamic was just what it was and would remain that way, at least until we hit some age where the interest in it would inevitably decline.  That view was reinforced when I retired, and nothing changed.

 But, then Anne joined me in retirement part way through 2022 and, while it wasn’t a night and day difference, things definitely did change.  Spankings became more frequent.  She became generally more assertive. There was that whole thing with leaving window shades open.  I’m not sure whether either of us were ever conscious of her having big concerns about people at work finding out about this thing we do, but it’s pretty clear that her employment was, in fact, a psychological constraint all those years. 

 So, in that very important respect, 2022 does seem to have been a game-changer.  Either over the holidays or early in 2022, I’ll undoubtedly annoy you all with my annual process of goal setting and resolution making.  Humbling, respect, and obedience have been goals in the past, but now that we are empty-nesters and both retired, there is no excuse for not bringing more proactive attention to those issues.  Moreover, as my most recent post’s references to some recent arguments shows, humbling me and showing me who is boss seems to be not only a good goal but a necessary one.  

 On the gratitude front, we once again were fortunate not to lose any immediate or close family members.  Better yet, last year I did lose a couple of people who were not family members but were very big influences on my life; nothing like that happened this year.  Most of our family and friends are in pretty good health.  

 So, as I said last year, as we all run around buying those last-minute gifts, let's think a little about what a blessing it is to have people in our lives to buy those gifts for. Maybe try to do something nice for a friend, family member, or stranger who may not be as lucky.  

  

Until next year, I hope you all have a restful, peaceful, holiday season and get to take some time away with family and friends.  Merry Christmas and happy holidays!  

 And, in case you're still looking for that perfect gift for that special someone, just remember . . .