Happy Birthday to my blog! And Happy 42nd Birthday to me!

It feels like I just wrote my second blog birthday post a few days ago. Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project, sure is on to something when she says, “The days are long but the years are short.”

So what have I learned this past year? Most importantly, I learned how to reincarnate.

This year, I died a metaphorical death on my Mount Everest (i.e., publishing). Nobody is more surprised about this turn of events than me. It all started back in December when I did my most recent death meditation.

During that time, I realized I was letting fear keep me from going all in with my writing.

I then decided 2019 would be my year of discipline and I would put everything I had into getting published.

So far, I’ve written a lot of new material and I’ve now submitted my manuscripts to more agents than ever before. I’ve had some requests for more material and although I receive plenty of form rejections, I’ve also gotten some really nice personalized ones. All good signs on the path to publication.

Here’s what I didn’t expect: I lost my joy for writing somewhere along the way. Talk about a kick in the pants!

Of course, there are ripple effects when you lose something you value. My sense of wonder and awe in the little things all but disappeared. My curiosity decreased. So did my sense of adventure.

I didn’t even have the heart to write on this blog for the last few months, despite some truly wonderful happenings in my life.

Since January, I have now had eight articles published in a local newspaper. Bonus: I get paid to write these!

In May, I spent time in San Antonio and Austin, celebrating graduation milestones for my nephew and niece.

In June, an actual dream of mine came true when Norfstroms, Norfolk’s first and only salvage shed opened at the town transfer station. We had a salvage shed where I lived in North Carolina and I’ve missed having one here in town. I’ve been working with a local grassroots organization called Norfolk NET (Networking Everyone Together) and town hall to get one here. And it actually happened! You can read about it here and here.

Also in June, I was invited to speak at the Norfolk UCC Congregational Church during the pastor’s sabbatical.

 

As I texted Heath that morning:

 

You can listen to the sermon here. At the age of 42, I can say with certainty that experience was one of the greatest moments in my life.

And in a few weeks, I’ll be starting a part-time job at that same church as the director of community and creativity. This is a new position designed to increase the flow of God’s love in this world through good works and relationship building. What a gift and, again — I’m going to get paid to do it!

And speaking of getting paid for fun things, I have another opportunity in the works that I can’t speak about yet. But it involves working part-time at another one of my favorite places in the world!.

Then there are the little moments these past few months: so many dogs to love and each and every moment with Heath.

All this joy, and, yet…I let the cloud of being so hyper-focused on my publishing goal touch everything that I forgot to enjoy myself along the way. As I learned in The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman, this is how people actually die on Mount Everest. They get so focused on getting to the top, they lose sight of everything else. This includes how they’re going to get back down.

The funny part is, I realized I lost my joy for writing when I couldn’t write for a few weeks.

I’m currently spending the month of July in Birdsboro, PA, taking care of the ever entertaining and adorable Bonnie and Jasper.

While housesitting here, I don’t have a car. Which has been mostly fine. Until my Microsoft Surface crashed.

It’s been two weeks. At first, I tried writing using apps on my phone. This is okay for jotting ideas down and short pieces, but incredibly frustrating for anything longer that requires formatting. Case in point: this blog post has now taken me over three hours to write, format, and publish. It’s for this reason, I included so few dog photos above.

I also tried writing by hand. But as someone who wrote an entire novel with a pen on yellow legal pads and has yet to type that novel up two years later, I know the futility of this practice.

So I filled my time other ways. Every day, I dance for fun and exercise, especially since it’s too hot to walk outside for very long. I stamp and watercolor, making cards and art. I watch YouTube videos to learn how to draw dogs.

My work may not be a masterpiece in the traditional sense, but I DID THIS!!

It’s good to have the joy back in my life. I didn’t realize how hard life has been without it. And I couldn’t have asked for a better birthday present!