It’s my first post of 2020 — hooray! 🎉
Merp…
Anyway.
I guess I want to believe I’m like most people at the start of a new year. There seems to be this vibration in the air that tells me that everything is new again, and the slate got wiped clean when the clock struck midnight on December 31st. It almost always feels like that to me, and so everything I do becomes loaded with “do-over” magic sprinkled into the mix somehow.
Right now, there’s a fresh new date book sitting by my hip, and I love how clean and promising the empty pages feel to me. I have notoriously bad handwriting, so the first set of notes I wrote down to keep track of the first week of January display some real effort on my part. But I know myself so well, and by the time the third week of January rolls around, my illegible chicken scratch will no doubt take over, and my book will start looking like the familiar “Sonja Sanskrit” that only I can read.
But there’s this other thing I do that I bet other people do at the start of a new year, too. They start evaluating things with a clear head by seeking more information to make sure they do things better this year than they did last year. I always end a year of my life with a few regrets and my fair share of disappointments, too. But once I make peace with all of that, I always find myself eager to embrace “what’s next.”
And for me, all of this self-evaluation stuff involves seeking inspiring content to help me reframe my ideas and figure out a better way forward. So…as you might’ve already guessed, what I’m about to process in the remainder of this post requires a familiar warning from me before you continue to read:
NERD ALERT…you’ve been warned.
Yes, I’ve already started binging on some new podcasts! In fact, I have about 15 new podcast episodes in my cue right now, and all of them have to do with writing, the storytelling process, or wisdom for creatives and entrepreneurs. There are so many terrific podcasts to consume on my hikes or while I’m cleaning something or ironing our clothes, and while I mostly listened to true crime, unsolved mysteries, and historical podcasts at the end of last year, this year, I’m deeply craving some community for my mind when it comes to how other writers think.
I love to listen to panel discussions with writers who have written things I’ve either read or watched. It’s so inspiring to me to hear these writers who are doing “fancy things” that I want to do talk about how much they struggle with the same challenges I have every time I feel like I’m onto something good. And when topics like self-doubt or disillusionment are expressed by such accomplished writers, it somehow makes me less worried that I’m doing everything I do “the wrong way.”
For me, writing is kind of a lonely endeavor, yet that’s one of my favorite things about the process! It’s just me and all of my twirly thoughts that somehow show up in my fingertips…and then end up on a page. But when I hear another writer explain how their own loneliness morphed into something he or she can share with a roomful of other writers, and eventually, a world full of people eager to consume a good story, I can’t believe how much encouragement I find in that journey!
I mostly know who I am by now. I’m the lonely writer with messy handwriting who is always craving a do-over. But even in my most glorious moments of being alone with my thoughts and the words that usually organize themselves into a series of sentences, I know these days, I’m interested in being more. The pressure to define what “more” is to me has been building up for some time, but just acknowledging that in my first post of the new year seems bold and good to me today.
But I think this year, my vision is a bit sharper, and my ideas have more focus. Last year I spent so much time looking back and culling so much honesty from within by posting my memoir (The Imposition Tour) on this blog. In many ways, that was an enlightening, but at times, also a shameful process for me. But once those memories were out in the open, I experienced some emancipation from the past, too. It gave me the space to challenge old thoughts with newfound grace, and it also gave me the courage to let other thoughts go. I found a little bit of self-forgiveness for a few of the missteps from my past, and, I “outed” some bad narratives I’m finally ready to re-write in the next chapters of my life.
All of that happened last year because of this blog, and so in the mix of all of my regrets and missteps, I can also tell you…I’m very thankful. I know I didn’t do everything right when it comes to how I’ve promoted my writing on this blog, or how I’ve decided to approach the stories that build up inside of me, but I’m glad I’ve had a place to dump my thoughts — a place that’s not just my journal! But just like my 2019 journal, this blog has given me so much fodder for reflection and growth for the year ahead. And while it’s probably trite to say, it’s also undeniably so true:
Hindsight is always 20/20.
So maybe this year of all years, the looking back will offer me some kind of corrected vision to help keep me moving forward.
Happy 2020 Everyone!
