Now I Get It!

I finally know what happened to 2011. And it’s my own fault. 

It got away on me.  Slipped through my fingers like a greased pig. No – not a pig. That would indicate that I was chasing it.  It was more like I was just standing still with my hand out and it slipped through my fingers like ... sand. Sand from an hour glass.

I blamed the fact that I was working at a Real Job.  That’s just a handy excuse. I didn’t work every day, and in fact – I didn’t work for months at a time.  I know people who have Real Jobs and they still create and produce.  I did neither.

Now granted, for the very first time in the history of Me, I got to enjoy Christmas like a normal person. I was not up to my ears with fabric & fur & packing boxes.  I didn’t have little heads staring up at me, waiting impatiently for a body.  I was able to shop leisurely. I was able to decorate early and enjoy the evenings basking in the Christmas lights instead of having my mind running like hamster wheel, trying to sort all the things that I HAD to do before I got to play Christmas myself.

But I missed it. I missed those little vignettes – the children, the toys, the Santas. I missed the faces that come through my hands. I missed the little twinge of excitement I get when it comes together and I’m happy with it. I missed the whole creative process that starts with the ideas popping around in my head like Bingo Balls.  And I especially missed the connection with all the wonderful people that I have met over the years because of my creations, and the wonderful people that I WOULD have met.  Now that it's over, I have come to the realization that a calm and chaos-free Christmas wasn’t much worth it. A big piece of me was missing.

BUT … it is my own fault.  I just discovered that today.

Every year for at least the past twenty, on New Year’s Day I get all cozied up and get out my daily journals – the one from the year just past and the new one.  I write down my top 12 or so Goals for the coming year, and I go over the previous one to see how I did on them.

Today, I searched the pages of my 2011 journal for that list and came up with Nothing.  It’s always the very first page – not hard to miss.  The page is blank. I searched in places that it wouldn’t be, thinking I may have had a momentary brain freeze last year and wrote it on some random page.  I even did what I do with my computer when I can’t open a file or it’s not behaving like I need it to. I shut it totally and opened it again, hoping that a RE-BOOT would solve the problem.  Nope.  No list of Goals. Nothing. Nadda. No darn wonder that my whole year was flapping in the breeze.

Now... I have to admit, that after I write out those goals each year, I actually never go back and look at them until the following January 1^st. And I might as well admit that 90% of the goals have been the exact same ones for the past two decades. But, that’s insignificant really – I KNOW they’re there, I don’t have to see them, I don’t have to act on them … I get a sense of control knowing that for the very briefest second, I have put some thought into what I could/should/would do with the 365 days that lies ahead.

I really was shocked today when I discovered that I had totally neglected that exercise.  I remember now, why that happened. My book was late. It got delayed in the mail and I didn’t have it for my New Year’s Day ritual. It arrived the following week, but by then I was working at that Job – all day, five days a week. And considering that the last time I had done that in my life was 1976, I do believe that I just got blown totally off course.  I’m sure I meant to catch up one day, but apparently it never happened.

Well, I’m done with just blowing in the wind. It was fun and freeing while it lasted, but I’m taking a hold of the reins a little tighter this year.  I am going to get my balance. I have done due diligence today, sorted my thoughts and made my plan. I am recapturing my Creative Soul and putting that little sucker to work.