The Demise Of The Fundamental Thing

"How do you measure, measure a year?"

People reach the end of years, and naturally they want to think “Well, was this year a success? What was good and bad about it?” Some people don’t do this, of course, and just plow ahead with “the busy holiday season.” I’d argue most semi-aware and introspective people do some kind of audit of the year. If you’re in the thick of raising kids or peak earning years, I’d argue this “audit” is probably a bit transactional: Are people generally happy and healthy? Are we arriving at commitments? Are we making money? I think it takes a lot of people until 3–5 years into empty nesting to really ask, “Hey, am I doing stuff that makes me happy year-over-year?” I might be wrong about that. Dunno.

I’ve now written metric shit tons about infertility, so I won’t inundate you with links aside from that one. I will tell you that one unfortunate byproduct of that journey is that as you reach the end of a given year, it can feel like your only barometer for success in that year was: “Well, did this happen?” As such:

• “Yes, it did.” = Successful year

• “No, it did not.” = Unsuccessful year

Pretty binary way to evaluate a year, right? It can suck.

2022 was the official year of IVF failure. 2023 was the second year of failure. I don’t know what 2024 holds. At this point, I’m reluctant on another $20,000 with the same potential results, but it’s a constant dance between: