New Year's Eve Musings

Well, here it is. The turning of another year. It seems like only yesterday . . . What have I accomplished this past year? Did I meet my goals? Did I give and receive enough love? Are the answers to my existential questions any clearer?

It's been a rough couple of months. As often happens (does it happen because I believe it will happen?), many of my private practice clients go away for the months of November and December, or they turn their attention to celebration and creating the family traumas which will be the topics of our January discussions, or they simply put self-growth on the back burner. In any event, things are quiet for me. Even the classes I teach for a university are out of session for three weeks. My son is grown and I haven't invited a new man into my life. Not sure if I will. Sometimes the quiet is very loud.

I try to write every day. Even if I erase whatever I wrote the day before. The anthology I wrote the short story for got so many submissions that they've pushed back the date of notification by a month. Immediately upon hearing that they had so many entries to read, I assumed mine wouldn't be selected. I've read it over and over again in recent days, positive now that it has little merit. If I believe that, I wonder how I had the courage to send it to them to begin with? It's a schizophrenic feeling. One minute I'm hopeful, madly writing and submitting. Then the voices of self-doubt whisper in my ear, followed by the absolute certainty that every word I've put on paper is crap. If it's true that many writers are a little crazy, I might have finally found a place where I belong.