It's Not Really a New Year's Resolution, But...

I guess the next round qualifies, doesn't it? I work this last weekend of WinterFest before the UpShift list grows bleak for a while, at least for someone with my timeframe. I'd already planned to devote January to UnSung's 2019 release, as well as that dentist appointment falling smack dab on the first of the year. This will also be the same month I devote myself to sloughing off the winter weight, looking into a doctor who can help me uncover the mystery of why exercise usually means more muscle gain than weight loss for me.

So while it's not a proper resolution, it certainly falls under a timeframe liberated from the crunch of gift making and temp work, a time when I can get geared up for ComicCon and future goals.

I feel the near-sighted trepidation of a busy weekend and the healing of these ornery teeth. Yet in the middle of that, I'm looking forward to going to WinterFest with my family as guests and our sit-in New Year celebration involving wine (the delightfully non-alcoholic sparkling sort for the kiddies) and a slew of board games. So it's not all crunch time, just activities that will require energy I'll really have to reach for.

Yet I see it there, just past that-- the closing of another book, which will be my eleventh. I see the gratifying hard work as I brush up the cover and format it for print and ebook. I see the excitement of returning to UnHeard, my NaNoNovel, to make it into an epic third entry to the world I never named. Only the continents, some of the cities and the smaller elements grow in increasing revelation, an homage to how blurry the world can get on the broad and distant edges. Even my most well-traveled characters are subject to how the world moves behind their backs.

I love how writing is so full of these little treasures of the writer. It's not just full of what we know, but what we reach for, what we want to know, yet still never quite get. Like sand art, we endeavor to create these rainbow layers, but no matter how much we try to pack it tight so the gap doesn't disrupt the sands, disturbances and time always break it down further when it's bumped around.

Rather than try so carefully not to disturb the balance, there is a moment when we must accept that stories are subject to forces that even care cannot preserve. Instead of trying to make the sands cooperate, we must appreciate the beauty of not only what it was but what it becomes.

I truly anticipate going back to that uncertainty. I've never been held back by doubt when it comes to creativity, at least not in this stage of my life. In truth, all through my life, what I've done even leisurely is somehow always magnified by people in wonder of what I sometimes took for granted. From the comics I threw onto lined notebooks in grade school to the fluorescent fairies I hid around the flower shop I worked in, there was always unexpected joy in having what I created for myself spied over my shoulder, the unchecked sounds of admiration for ways I filled my time and calmed my mind.

So why wouldn't I want to find the guts to share it? Truly, the response was worth it, but I was undoubtedly fragile. It took many years to forge myself into a creature that understood how criticism should be taken, to improve myself or ignore it altogether.

Let's be real here (as if I'm ever not) and observe that the 'suck it up, buttercup' sentiment is bullshit. It worked for older generations, for a time when opportunities were abundant, but even in cutthroat competitive areas nowadays, it does you little good. Sticking it out nowadays means it's not healthy to suck up all that poisonous tripe. Those generations didn't have the ruthlessness of keyboard warriors and doxxing that could make or break who you are. We don't need to suck that garbage up. We need to turn it into something useful and send it out. We need to strategize, to build armies, to be the arbiters of our own fate because letting others define us is dangerous.

And, really, I don't know anyone who says that who isn't sitting comfortably in a niche that is working for them. 

Closing on a light note, I love squirrels. Not just watching the silly bastards, but how much their constant bustling seems completely carefree even with such purpose to it. How, once they make it to the top of a tree, they don't just puff up in pride. They look for the next great adventure with no hint of complacency. It's no wonder so many writers consider them a fitting mascot.

Happy New Year!

I've always found the idea of resolutions to be fraught with far more disappointment than encouragement. Life doesn't let you plan for death and loss or the sweeping thrill of sudden joy either. It just doesn't, so those timed goals can feel like an impediment. 

You know me-- always with my ambitious lists. One thing I don't do is put a definite time limit on them. I don't say with any promise that any year will be great. Although I often start a new goal on a Monday (which is often my favorite day of the week because of that), I don't beat myself up when Wednesday night makes me realize my weekly goals might have been over-ambitious. 

Things get done. In their own time. Sometimes it's a lot less than you wanted, sometimes it's a lot more than you hoped. I don't wake up demanding a promise of a good day. There are things I have to actively do or avoid or just face in getting through each one. At the end of each day, I like to look back on it and tally my victories and defeats and do better.

I definitely don't plan for breaks. It's the one thing I absolutely suck at. It's not that I don't know how to relax, it's just that there is actually so much that I fully want to do. Sometimes I go weeks before I realize I'm probably an insufferable cunt because I haven't touched a video game in forever. I don't necessarily regret it but it then becomes an immediate priority. Yes, on my list of priorities, dreams and family often come first, but nothing is locked in place. At any time, video games might take the top spot because I need to inspire my work or just need to enjoy the fruits of someone else's labors.

You probably beat yourself up when you think about how selfish that sounds in your own life. Socially, we've been geared to pump out a top five list that sounds agreeable. It's one thing to do that for the pageantry of conversation, but one of the reasons Americans are so laden with mental illness--  we feel so guilty when our actions don't fall into this impossible ideal that we neglect what had been groomed into us as a luxury rather than an actual need.

Don't know about you, but becoming a ball of stress never did me any good and it certainly didn't make me useful to those around me.

So go into the New Year with that in mind. If you must make resolutions, make them flexible. If you want to lose weight, great. Don't put a number on it. Make sound and workable lifestyle choices that take into account that you are human. Overwork and injury make you less than productive if not useless. If you want to finish that book, go for it. If you barely make it to the end of 2018 with a legible draft, you still did far more than the person who didn't start at all. Take into account the hurdles you faced and figure out what you need to do to press on.

Try not to make your goals a slow walk to the guillotine. You might face some crippling adversity or you might catch a lucky break. Humble yourself to all of it. If you base your next goals off of your very best week, you're probably going to slam into a wall. Rock bottom sucks but I like to think of an old lesson I learned as a child. You don't build your house on sand, you build it on a rock. Rock is your foundation. You don't stop there or try to dig through it, you build up. Think of what will keep your next house stronger.

I know life is tough. You won't hear me reflect on all that's gone wrong in my life because those were footnotes. I will deal with chronic pain and mental glitches my whole life and I've learn to stop fighting against them, but to work them to whatever advantage I can suck out of them. I have become an intuitive and deep person through those bumpy spots. I've become the sort of person that people know they can talk to because I have no desire to abuse the vulnerabilities of others. I protect others as preciously as I've protected myself but I don't hold anyone back either. I know it sounds like I'm tooting my own horn but you should know that once you can tear through the fog, there's a bright side somewhere. Yeah, sometimes there's a lot of fog and some pretty terrifying and impossible pain. There are parts where I was sure I should give up. The longer I endured, the sweeter the air on the other side. Even when it left me boneless and weak, I was glad just for the ragged breaths I could pull into my lungs.

Maybe I'm just shit at telling time but I don't weigh my success by the rotations of the earth. It can be staggering to reach beyond yourself, stretching beyond your home, your town, your country, the earth and out into the universe. You wouldn't take on all of that at once, so don't treat time like a thing of convenience either. You are an amazing creature of so many possibilities, just reach each day, even if it's just the length of your own arm and grab for something. Treat each day like a new start, the beginning of your potential. 

I had a humble start. Touching base with my handful of dear friends through messages, doing the work/play labors of love... That's the short version. I made some Perler bead crafts, finished the last of the simple color basing for my third book, read some of my friend Liz's story and wrote a few hundred words for UnSung. Woke up at 1:30 PM, braved the cold to walk to the store and run into my favorite Kroger employee and friend Landon. Got home, made hazelnut coffee then made some Omaha Steaks with my family, courtesy of the holiday gift from my aunt. It was a humble day, but the absolute perfect start if I could ask for one. If this day could really set the tone for what I want from the 'year', that would be everything I could ask for.

What I want to leave you with is this: reword your day. If your day sucked, rewrite it in a positive light. Sometimes your car breaks down, you get the worst news of your life and there really is no silver lining. This is where artists often work some magic. There are lessons there, ones that seem impossible to paint with any light, but trust me, it's possible. It's also been my number one survival tool. Sometimes it take a week, a few months, a year before I am able to see value, but that's the art of life. Losing my mom was soul-crushing, displacing, but there was something there, waiting to push me ahead. I wish I could name it but laboring to do so wove its magic. It's not because my mom wanted it or because I was moving on in her honor. Those things felt so trite where possibility was concerned. Perhaps it was more like the pieces of her and the pieces of me reordered to make a new picture possible. Somehow all the pieces, no matter how fucked up, they still manage to fit. I could have let them be wasted or collect dust, but I didn't.

That's what matters. If you're going to collect anything in life, put it to use. If it's not useful to you, find it a home. Sometimes the answers are deceptively simple, only the journey to arrive there coloring them with true meaning. Do quotes ever mean the exact same thing to any of us? Yet something resonates there, doesn't it?