Tag: New Year

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The Year-End Post

2014

Every January 1, I start the year with so much hope.

Every December 31, I cannot wait for the new year to start.

2014 was a difficult 12 months for me. But it was never going to be anything else. The year was dominated by the fact that my baby girl was turning 18, graduating high school and starting college. I would not have had it any other way, but that doesn’t mean that letting go wasn’t hard.

This was also the year when I had to face the fact that my good health wasn’t a given. I have been very fortunate that I’ve made it to my age without any huge health issues, but I think that made the hysterectomy I endured in September all the more frightening. I don’t like doctors, I don’t like hospitals, I don’t like feeling dependent on others. I mean, who does? I spent a lot of time this year in denial that the surgery was going to happen, and then when I finally accepted it, I used up a lot of energy dreading what was to come.

On the bright side, with the timing right after Megan left for college, my surgery distracted me from realizing how much I missed her.

I was surprised at how quickly I was able to get back on my feet after the surgery. I’ve also been surprised by the lingering after-effects. It took eight weeks for the incision to heal… but I’m still feeling pain in my belly and am not sure when I’ll be back to 100%. This is annoying, except when I can use it to get out of unpleasant tasks like cleaning the cat box. I predict that I will be back to performing that chore early in 2015 – just not this week.

As last year ended, I acquired a client that has kept me working for them almost exclusively. This has also been a boon to my adjustment to my new post-mom life. But the time I’ve devoted to work has left little for blogging, and I miss having this outlet for self-expression. I hope to rectify that over the next few days, as I revisit the original purpose of this blog and post several observations from our recent visit to the UK (just concluded on Monday). It kind of harks back to the cyclical nature of the New Year: My very first posts — 11 years ago — were about such a visit. I never expected my blog to last beyond that vacation.

I’ll see you next year.

 

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The New Year’s Post

New Year day, 2013Today is my first REAL day of the New Year, after spending the holiday up at my sister’s and taking all of yesterday to drive back home from Sacramento.

We had a wonderful holiday, as you can see from this photo taken on New Year’s Day. It was three relaxing, easy days of hanging out with my sister’s family (which usually entails eating too much, because she and I are Jewish and that is how we celebrate). It was a fitting end to a year that had some ups and too many downs.

For example: I began 2012 by breaking my thumb my first day back home, while I was springing our dog from the kennel. And soon after the thumb healed, I broke a toe.

I am happy to report that I managed to get the dog home today without incurring injuries to either of us. But there have been other things today that popped my happy New Year’s bubble.

I suppose that’s just a case of what happens when the holiday eventually ends and you need to resume your normal life.

I am trying to figure out what “normal life” means to me. Last month was the beginning of my TENTH year of writing this blog, (which I’ve been celebrating by reprinting highlights from the 1500 posts I’ve written over those years. Just the good ones, of course.)

Re-reading the old material is sobering. There was a sweet spot around 2005-08 when I think my writing had gotten pretty good. Since then, I’ve written some things I am proud of – but the newer posts lack the heart and spirit I put into this thing in the beginning.

Ironically, as my blog became more recognized, my writing became less personal. Some of this was deliberate: When I was flying under the radar, I felt free to observe the world around me (including the people I knew). The minute I started gaining an audience, I had to be more circumspect. I also began writing for other entities – for recognition, for products and for pay. I started writing for others instead of what was in my heart.

It wasn’t deliberate. The world was changing – FAST – and I was simply trying to keep up.

I am not the only old-time blogger who has made this kind of observation. My friend Liz Thompson laid it out beautifully in this post she published just before the New Year:

As 2012 comes to a close, 63 days post-Sandy and 10 days after the Mayans quit counting (can you blame them?) I find myself in the totally opposite situation: clinging to my archives, like a teething child looking for something to bite into (HARD!) and stomping my feet while declaring (in a totally whine-y voice):

“But, I don’t waaaaaaaant to stop blogging AND you can’t make me…DAMMIT!”

Especially, whenever some whippuh-snap-puh-marketing-type insists that my blog and I just don’t meet the demographic…or have the following…not to mention, the traffic…necessary to be deemed successful…in the blogging terms.

To this I say: BITE ME!!!

So the buck stops now.

This is a new site, in a new location. Whatever audience I once had has pretty much disappeared.

I’m starting over, and it’s liberating.

Like my friend Liz, I am trying to get back the magic of 2003, when this blogging thing was shiny and new and we were making it up as we went along. So I am going to try to write from the heart, to read what my friends are writing and to actually leave comments (on their blogs).

And hopefully, I can do that without breaking any bones.