New Year. 2018. This is the first year in a long time that I don’t have a detailed list, or lists, of goals. Usually I have professional, then personal goals, sub-headed with writing, reading, speaking; relationships, home, travel, family, friends, hobbies. I’ve even attempted to have my husband, aka National Treasure, join me in the glee (yes. really) of making those lists. He declined.
This year it all just seemed too daunting. 2017 went far too fast, even though it was packed with:
Travel – Kauai, Virginia and DC, Illinois, California
Literary accomplishments – acceptance in two new anthologies:
Happiness – two great-nieces’ graduations and beginning college, an engagement, new babies, new friends.
Sadness – my dear brother-in-law taken from us by cancer, and far too many friends battling this horrible disease.
Professional endeavors – sharing my experiences in editing, public speaking, and stories.
Expanding my horizons – Improvisation classes, Odyssey Storytelling, Tellers of Tales.
Maybe that’s what made it go so fast. There was always something to do, people to meet and enjoy.
So this year, 2018, I’m revising an activity from my teaching plan book, “What I Know- and Don’t Know.”
WHAT I KNOW: I will continue creative writing, blogging, and submitting my work for publication, and sharing what I know. I will make self-care a priority. I will take time to spend time with people I care about. I will try things I’ve never done before. I will start tap dancing again. I will travel to Europe, California, Chicago, and the East Coast- from VA to MA. (Fair warning to all my contacts in VA, DC, PA, NJ, NY (that means LI, NYC, and upstate), MA. I’ll even make a stop on Staten Island to visit my alma mater Wagner College. After all these years, I want to walk on the Oval again and marvel in person at the changes I’ve seen online.
WHAT I DON’T KNOW: Exactly how all this will unfold. What else might be gifted to me.
WHAT I’M WILLING TO TRUST IN: The best is yet to come.
What do you know about 2018?
Ethel Lee-Miller blogs regularly about people, the power of words, and the writing life. She is the author of Thinking of Miller Place, and Seedlings, Stories of Relationships.
Tap Dancing? Good for you!
I know that I will NOT be taking up tap dancing in 2018, but I will be looking forward to any potential trips you and Hank may make to New England.
Love my tap class if I remember to laugh when I realized what I think is a brandy new step was actually done last week, but now we’re “up to tempo.” No confirmed plans for New England, but I’m negotiating.
I’ve read and re-read this post and found it interesting, inspiring, and enjoyable each time. But I was unable to find the tension within the context other than the ‘exactly how all this will unfold’ entry. When I come up against such a road block, because tension must exist for a piece to work, I resort to etymology, the history of linguistic form, such as a word. Then I re-read looking for such a word that would intrigue me and there, right in the second paragraph, it was: daunting. An alteration of the French, ‘donter’, meaning ‘to tame’, and the Latin, ‘domitare’, also meaning ‘to tame’, the word ‘daunting’ sparked a curiosity within the context, to wit, if creating a list of goals is too daunting, or too taming, then living without such lists, or without structure in our lives is, perhaps, more courageous. The phrase ‘fly by the seat of one’s pants’ comes to mind, but I think you get the gist of it. So 2018, for me and I suspect for you and Hank is the year of courageous thinking, acting, and planning. Since I will be retiring after 33 years and turning 70 to boot, I believe it must be one of courageous thinking and acting for me, as well! But can I do it without structure? Time will tell; your mantra,’The best is yet to come’ is a good one to remember. Thank you for this, Ethel………