So Long 2023, Hello 2024:
End of Year Ponderings, Goal-setting, and the State of Things in General
What a mixed year this has been – and I know that’s been the case for many if not most of us. The world is on fire and common sense feels missing in action, hatred running wild, and my grief and fear some days threatens to overwhelm everything else. I haven’t finished any of my planned posts for this platform in over a month. The words have felt insufficient for everything the world is experiencing.
And yet.
I took a leap of faith and changed jobs this year, and in doing so, found a better life/work balance (including school holidays, a coffee/snack bar in my campus building, and a janitorial staff that keeps the toilet paper filled!) and a very much shorter commute. I sold another book and somehow, I’m now an author with two picture books coming in 2025, both of them Jewish-themed, that last part being something I’ve aimed at for a while. I went to Paris with people I love, and planned another adventure for next year. I watched two clever, adorable grandkids grow. I saved up enough money for a new front door. I am fortunate to have friends and family and friends who are family, firmly in my life as I am in theirs. I am hugely thankful and humbled.
And now here we are. December 31st. New Year’s Eve. In addition to making the annual spinach dip (because of course you have to ring in the new year with spinach dip in a bread bowl, just like your mother used to do, right?), I write a letter to myself. I’ve been doing this since around 2005, the year I decided that I needed to take writing more seriously and work toward writing a book for traditional publication. That year, my letter was simply a small list of goals, including growing my hair out of its decade plus old short ‘mom cut.’ I can’t even tell you why I decided that this was the moment, but I do know the feeling that I needed CHANGE and I needed it NOW had been building for a few years. I’m a strong believer that we need to listen to that inner voice, especially when it’s shouting.
But there I was with this goal list. And unlike previous years, this time I followed through –both on the hair as well as the writing. (Admittedly I didn’t do as well with losing the 10 pounds, which I did eventually lose, but only because of thyroid cancer, not because I lost my taste for carbs.) By 2006, I had finished my first novel and acquired an agent. In 2007, she sold my book, and after a bit a delay (publishing being publishing), it arrived in the world in 2009, and everything else has tumbled along since then. Including my New Year’s letters to myself.
Because, yes, by 2009, those lists had transformed into actual letters in addition to goal setting—a review of the year, good and bad, world and personal. I skim through them each December, and like the analog calendars I have kept since some time in the 90s, they are artifacts now, a sort of archaeological dig through my life and the world around me, what I hoped to achieve professionally and personally, be it a book deal or new carpeting. I wish I’d always kept this type of record, but other than the diary I wrote in haphazardly in 7thgrade—where mostly I opined about what boy I liked, friendship woes, and more than occasionally, what we had for dinner—I was not a consistent journal keeper even as I knew I’d probably be a writer someday. (Yeah. Laziness. I can’t think of any other excuse)
But now I can read those letters and know exactly what was happening the world, exactly what I wanted and hoped for, and exactly what I did or did not accomplish and how long it took me. Some quick observations before I go stir that delicious spinach dip and cut the middle out of that loaf of sourdough I just bought? Here goes, in no particular order:
Lots of things hold me accountable these days, including the group of writer friends I’ve written about previously and our weekly Zoom meetings, but these letters are a major factor in every single writing success I’ve had since I began them.
I struggle with change. I am also a procrastinator. Also, the world does not care one iota that I want a new front door or another book deal or that I’ve gained back most of those ten pounds. Typing that I want to go to Ireland or Paris or buy new carpeting or remodel the bathroom does not mean that I achieve this immediately. Sometimes I get in my own way. Sometimes, the world has its own plans. But this does not mean these things don’t happen. Just not on the schedule I hoped. (New flooring, I am looking at you. Seriously.)
Who you surround yourself with is a BIG DEAL. Finding ‘your people’ is crucial.
The world has been on fire for a long time. Yeah, probably forever. Things are feeling extra difficult and scary right now, but it’s clear doing a skim read from 2005—2023 that we’ve had a lot of those years. They are, generally speaking, not excuses for anything that I don’t achieve. But it is insightful to realize. And focusing in terms of what I want to write about and who I want to be as I write (as we all do) about what it means to be human on this planet.
I really did need to travel more, and I’m glad I keep finding a way.
I have some unfinished book projects that I need to either truly put away or push myself to finish.
Focused goal-setting that’s specific really does work for me.
I think it’s time to change up my hair again. We’ll see what happens.
Happy New Year. Here’s to peace in 2024.