What a year 2020 was, huh?
The end there got a bit dark and struggle-y for me personally but here we are, on the other side of that 0.
My hope for this year is to be more active here, read more books and write more. Of course, I also have those 'typical' goals of getting healthier, working out more, etc. What can I say? I'm only human.
2020 changed a lot of things for pretty much everyone I know. There are so many things I miss and so many things that I've learned about myself. For instance, I've learned that working without background noise is a real struggle for me and that I really like Lo-Fi music.
Today I spent a good part of the day getting all of my calendars set up for 2021 and writing down important events. Normally I have several conventions I'm going to but this year, I don't have a single one on my calendar. It makes me realize how much I do miss those convention conversations and hanging out with the friends I only see at these conventions.
I think 2021 is going to be a liminal year, full of transitions, strangeness and disorientation. We're in the middle of a reshuffling of a whole lot of ways of life and of people seeing a new way of doing things. Many places are already looking at more permanent work from home options and several conventions are looking at creating year-round online content. The way we live has fundamentally changed and this is the year that these changes take root.
I've always loved liminal spaces, the grocery store at 2am, the abandoned building or the airport in the dead of night (man, remember airports?). There is a potential in those areas, a quiet humming energy that stays unseen but sends the hairs on your arms standing on end.
For 2021, I have so many things I want to do, but I also want to give myself the time to both enjoy the potential and to adjust to the stress of change. No matter how exciting a change is, it's always stressful and 2020 really proved that. What a year. I've never napped so regularly as I did all this past year. It just felt like exhaustion was always crawling up my spine.
Right now I've set a few simple goals with solid numbers that will give me a clear 'yes or no' when it comes to the end of the year.
I want to write 500,000 words.
I want to earn $3000 from my writing/freelance work.
I want to work out five times a week.
Those are the basics that I am hoping for in 2021. They're pretty easily trackable and when December 31, 2021 arrives I can look back and see a pretty solid yes or no for those.
But at the same time, I also feel that this coming year is the perfect year to change and shift goals as the year goes. I'm open for leaning into that slightly unnerving liminal energy to see where the currents take me.
If you're reading this, remember you survived 2020 and saw the dawn of 21, that's exciting. Look towards the ever changing future and remember that it's impossible to predict what's ahead. Learning how to roll with those changes is a lesson I'm hoping to learn more about in the coming year because honestly, who knows what waits around the corner?