A YEAR IN REVIEW - GENERAL UPDATE
January 1, 2020 at 4:52 pm,
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00:00 hits on New Year and I am alone for the first time this holiday. At 23:45 I drink a glass of warm Bailey's from a port glass and at 23:55 I am dancing on this floor of carpet like I have never danced before. At 23:58 I smoke and make a toast to myself; really, to myself, and I tap the spot in my chest where the home belongs and I recognise the reward of all this work.
When New Year hits I smoke again and I smile with the fuel of a few minutes ago and eight minutes later I am writing in my book of grateful about everything I am grateful for this year.
And what am I grateful for this year?
Everything.
I'm grateful for having visitors this year; for letting people in close enough to stay.
I'm grateful for moving out; for this home.
I'm grateful for my plants.
I'm grateful for the first chapbook and
I'm grateful for the second and I'm
grateful for what has come of them.
I'm grateful for all my friends, new and
old and I'm grateful for owning myself, for once, for being
alone but not lonely and in company but
not any different. I'm grateful for life.
I'm grateful for the two features and the interviews and the opportunities in
my writing and I'm grateful for my parents' support and my name in
the library and I'm grateful for
the anniversary of getting my
typewriter just a few
days before.
I'm grateful for everything and
now I'm just going on too much of a
racket about being grateful.
But it''s not just about being grateful.
It's about the intention and then, the final choice. It's about the follow-through.
So, I set my intentions just after midnight for this year knowing I will hold myself to my goals; I will push for better. The resolution remains: "prioritise yourself," but in that I mean "prioritise that writing, do what you need to do and don't put it to the back. it matters. you matter. keep going." I rose that toast to myself at 00:00 and I intend to honour it.
That means:
- Refining this website solely for the purpose of keeping things more succinct.
- Working toward collaborations and actively drafting a process - not just thinking, doing.
- Continuing to focus on a more professional style of writing that extends just creative. Feature-style stories and a COMMITMENT to blogging to come.
- Studying more and more and beginning the journey of going BACK to university, despite everything argued by my person in past (*winky face*).
- Writing, writing, writing and when I'm not writing to BREATHE writing.
It is another year further in the process of growing up and the intention for life itself is strengthening every day. It's become more than just intending to grow but intending to live, to love and to challenge myself every day. To intend every good intention I can.
17:18 on New Years Day and I have sweated out the last of the alcohol and the day has been light and there is hope and love everywhere. I have written more than I have in months in these 17 hours and I feel the blood pulsing like only words know to do. I smoke and take a swift toilet break and I smile out to the sunlight fallen on my fly screen and we're okay, still. We're doing just
fine.
Maybe we'll have another toast of chilled Bailey's (this time) to the first day
and the next
and the next
and the one after
that
too.
Happy New Year to everyone and their family and friends. May life touch everything as beautifully as those around have touched me.
Stay brutal, stay honest, stay
lit (just until the holidays end),
Yours,
Charlotte E.E. Griffiths
@C.G.POETRY