Farewell 2015

“The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.”

Eden Phillpotts

I rearranged my to-be-read stack of books today. I like to revisit each book and determine if it still fits me. If not now, maybe in the future? This year I found some books I’ve outgrown before I ever read them. These are non-fiction books that contained content that I mastered another way, so now, they’re a bit irrelevant. I hope to pass them on to friends in a month or two. What surprised me were the books that I’d bought in previous years knowing I’d be ready for them later, just not yet. Now, I’m ready for them in spades! Yay! That feels like progress. I’m embarrassed to say I found two books that I had two copies of. The extra copies have gone to the book-swap box too. I need to do a better job keeping up with my purchased books!

Most surprising, I took a stack of books that I don’t feel like I need anymore. Half-way through the year, I decided to stop polishing my novel. I’ve set it aside to focus on things that are more exciting and fresh. My interests have changed a lot since I began the work, and it just doesn’t juice me anymore. Other things have gotten me pretty excited, and I’ve decided to switch gears. I’ve begun writing a non-fiction work, and we’ll see where that takes me. A whole stack of books devoted to fiction writing has now been set aside for that time when the novel gets interesting again. I feel pretty good about shelving those for now; it didn’t make me sad like I expected it to do.

I also took a look at my plans made in January 2015 for my personal business. (That’s the business in which I work for myself – I still work a 40-hour-a-week job working for someone else, too.) I increased my level of business again, but I didn’t do it quite the way I expected to. As I look back at my year’s goals, I realize how much things have changed in the past six months, personally and in my personal business. More and more people are asking me when I expect to begin teaching classes, so I that may emerge in the next year or so.

Bottom line – things have really changed this year, and all for the better! Okay, that’s a bit of an overstatement. My father died this year. I don’t consider that to be a good thing, but it was his choice to stop the chemotherapy. I thought that both continuing and quitting was courageous, and I vowed to support his decision either way. His death facilitated profound healing in the family in rather unexpected ways. Somehow, I think that was something he wanted.

Significant change is evident this year in my books, my business, and my future plans. Things have fallen to the wayside and new things have entered. Usually, there isn’t such rapid change in one year, but these changes appear to be here to stay. Farewell 2015 and welcome, 2016!