2024 in the Door!

Here is the space where I am normally laying out my numbers for the year. Write this many, read this many, do this project, take these pictures. I've been doing it for so long that even though I've told Brent probably 8 times that I'm not doing goals this year he is surprised every time I mention it. 

But by this point I've culled my lists and my goals to just the core of what I want to do anyway. The things that keep me happy and healthy both physically and mentally. I've changed weight goals to fitness goals. I've made sure that reading is on the list so I don't feel like I'm "wasting" my time when I'm reading. Like there is some chore that I could be doing but I'm choosing to read instead. Oh I'm not lazy, I have a goal to reach. But I think I've finally be able to flip that switch to it's okay that I'm reading. I'll get to the chores, or I won't, but it's okay. 

I enjoyed writing more last year. Which I always say I'm going to and then don't, but with that really high goal number I forced my hand. I'm hoping since I saw that it really did keep my head clear and gave me a lot of fiction, which I enjoy, I'm hoping that I remember that feeling and just continue on that path. Sit down and write more days than I don't. I'm also still doing the exchange with Dana this year, but that's not my goal it's hers.

But I'm also hoping that without hard numbers hanging over my head I feel a little more free to wander. Read something again, or something off the list. Don't worry about the fiction/nonfiction balance, if you want to write all fiction one week, go ahead, if you want to write all nonfiction, that's cool too. Do a puzzle. Color. Take a walk that doesn't count toward a workout badge. Sit and be. 

And that be? That's the year. I want it to be a year of being instead of just doing. 

Who am I at my core? Be that person. 

I talk about reading my on this day posts and one of the things that strikes me quite often is how I've hardened up over the past decade. I'm still pretty optimistic, I'm still pretty happy, I'm still more prone to sunshine and rainbows than not, but...That cynical side of me has come more and more to the forefront again. And with the ugly political season ahead of us I can see that that could become all of me. Passion and righteous anger are good things. Cynicism is not. Once cynicism wins you stop believing that anything can change. 

Cynicism is the loss of hope. 

I am not ready to lose hope. 

So part of my year is going to be disconnecting a little more from the daily news. I'll follow a handful of writers who I think do a good job of relating the day's news without it become "and another fucking thing." I'll be clear in my intentions and try not to let people who don't understand the rule of lesser evil bring me down. 

I know who I want to be, I need to make sure I'm feeding that part and not the cynic. 

This also started in my head around my birthday so if Fall rolls around and I hate it, if I feel unmoored instead of steady then I'll change things. Go back to my numbers and my stars. That could just be who I am. That it's not just the being, it's the doing, and the checking off those boxes. 

Which wouldn't surprise Brent at all.