Plus One Year’s Eve

Well, folks. I made it. This is my 366th post in a row having officially started writing this blog one year ago tomorrow. Happy anniversary to me.

Funny how anniversaries and life just seem to creep up on you. No fanfare or fireworks. Just progression.

I started this blog as a place to gather my thoughts while I committed to writing a book. There has been a book sitting in me for years, or so I’ve been told. I finally wanted to let it out.

So did that book get written? That depends on how you look at it. I wrote enough copy to fill a book certainly. But the technical aspects of book writing were never brought to bear on this project.

A beginning, middle and end to start. No. I chose to share my thoughts and insights into a range of eclectic topics as they arose or came to my attention. In that sense, I honored my own unfolding process and not a publisher’s checklist.

It has been an opportunity to share wisdom I’ve gleaned over the years through the writings of others.

It has been an opportunity to explore and share where I came from and how I healed from it.

It has given me a chance to publicly grieve the loss and raise up some people I admired.

I have a better sense of what matters to me and what I will no longer tolerate. Peace is top item on the list of goals these days. I have turned my back on drama.

This has not been a journal. I’ve done that before. In journals, I shared my deepest fears and insecurities. I bitched and wailed and generally pursued a story line of “woe is me.” This blog was deliberately something other than that.

I distilled the key learnings and strategies that kept me going on my “woe is me” days. I shared what I did to endure and prevail over “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” I worked at learning to forgive myself.

The gap between intellect and emotion can be vast. Such is the process of learning and growth. All of us seem to be slaves to unconscious programming we work our whole lives to understand and overcome.

I have carved out a little niche. An intellectual mini-garden that I can nurture and visit frequently. I don’t yet know what my next steps are. I will write a final post tomorrow just for the symmetry of ending on the same date I started last year.

I will once again this year attend the Getting Away to Write workshop in New Smyrna Beach, Florida next week. A geographic coda to this writing exercise as I started this blog there last year.

I must thank all of you who subscribed and read what I wrote. The comments were usually spot on. Insightful and helpful. The likes were encouraging and kept me motivated. I’ll pop up again from time to time in your inbox like other bloggers.

It’s time now for coffee and morning meditation. Time to ground myself and prepare for the day. It will be deliberately low-key as most of my days are lately. Such a welcome gift.

I love living this way. Forgiving myself as well as forgiving those who trespassed against me. Marinating in the memories of a lifetime and looking back with gratitude. Enjoying the living environment I’ve created whilst living with someone I love who loves me back.

Above all else, I’m certain that my journey – like a billion other journeys taking place in the world out there at this moment – is but a single cell in the vast corpus of life on our planet. Both unique and utterly ordinary.

Whatever is ahead, I plan to enjoy the remainder of the ride to the best of my ability.

Thank you for sharing part of the journey with me.