The Hangover List

I woke up on January 1 with two hangovers. One came from the wine tasting we’d done the night before with my wife and our friends Arpi and Nunu from Tomcsanyi Birtok. The other had taken all year to build.

We’d started a company while raising two kids and trying to keep work, marriage, and the rest of life attached to each other. There was illness in the family, a war nearby, and an economy pressing on everything. It was also, somehow, a good year. I don’t know how to make those facts resolve neatly, so I won’t.

Our parents took the kids and the house went quiet. My wife and I slipped away for two days, talked through the year, and tried to work out what we wanted from the next one before ordinary life became loud again.

The list we came back with was almost embarrassingly ordinary:

1. Successfully finish dry January and replace drinking with sports.
2. Start cooking again. Every Friday night reserved for cooking with friends and family.
3. Be more calm and relaxed, trust myself, and keep helping others.
4. Get ready for Budapest while keeping the main base in Switzerland.

The fourth item is the large one, but the first three will probably decide whether I arrive there as somebody my family enjoys being around.

I’m publishing the list because a promise hidden in my notes is too easy to renegotiate. In a few months I’ll know whether this was a plan or just the second hangover talking.