2016: How do I review this year?
I have made it a habit, on December 31, to make a year in review post. Today, the thought of reviewing the year is challenging, to say the least. 2016 was perhaps one of the worst years I've ever lived and reviewing it to the depth that my usual questionnaire format would require is exhausting just in the consideration of doing it.
But it was an awful year: devastating illness, the after-effects of which I'm still dealing with, the deaths of friends, the loss of a love that I still can't believe or . . . I just can't. We lost a number of influential artists this year (Bowie, Prince, Carrie Fisher, Alan Rickman, Gene Wilder, and so many others) and while I'm sad they're gone, their loss is a remote thing to me emotionally. Our incoming president elect is grossly and manifestly unsuited and unfit for the job he is about to undertake and that fact--along with the reality that so many of my fellow Americans voted for him--is, to me, horrifying. I published nothing this year, nothing, mainly because I was so depressed and bottled up that I produced nothing--unprecedented for me.
This year did produce good things: my newly renovated bathroom, my trip to Ireland with E, my visit with the family over Christmas, and the love and support with which I am surrounded daily. Sophie (who lounges in my lap purring even as I type this) and Ezekiel. Good books, good theater, good movies. The craft fair experiment. I do have a great deal to be thankful for. I know it. This year, it's been hard to remember it, but I must do so, for it's these things which make life worth its day-to-day challenges.
In 2017, I must pay more attention to my own self care. I must focus on my own art and writing. I must get my home in the kind of order that will allow me to find some peace and comfort--divest myself of more stuff, find some visual order instead of the visual chaos with which I live every day. I need to foster my own financial recovery; there were things I had planned to spend money on in 2016, but there were other financial hits I totally didn't expect.
In short, I must make myself my own first priority. I have spent far too long taking care of other people, other people's dreams. This has got to be the Year of Me. That's a terrifying prospect. But I suspect it will be a good one, in the end.
But it was an awful year: devastating illness, the after-effects of which I'm still dealing with, the deaths of friends, the loss of a love that I still can't believe or . . . I just can't. We lost a number of influential artists this year (Bowie, Prince, Carrie Fisher, Alan Rickman, Gene Wilder, and so many others) and while I'm sad they're gone, their loss is a remote thing to me emotionally. Our incoming president elect is grossly and manifestly unsuited and unfit for the job he is about to undertake and that fact--along with the reality that so many of my fellow Americans voted for him--is, to me, horrifying. I published nothing this year, nothing, mainly because I was so depressed and bottled up that I produced nothing--unprecedented for me.
This year did produce good things: my newly renovated bathroom, my trip to Ireland with E, my visit with the family over Christmas, and the love and support with which I am surrounded daily. Sophie (who lounges in my lap purring even as I type this) and Ezekiel. Good books, good theater, good movies. The craft fair experiment. I do have a great deal to be thankful for. I know it. This year, it's been hard to remember it, but I must do so, for it's these things which make life worth its day-to-day challenges.
In 2017, I must pay more attention to my own self care. I must focus on my own art and writing. I must get my home in the kind of order that will allow me to find some peace and comfort--divest myself of more stuff, find some visual order instead of the visual chaos with which I live every day. I need to foster my own financial recovery; there were things I had planned to spend money on in 2016, but there were other financial hits I totally didn't expect.
In short, I must make myself my own first priority. I have spent far too long taking care of other people, other people's dreams. This has got to be the Year of Me. That's a terrifying prospect. But I suspect it will be a good one, in the end.