This is that time of year when most folks make resolutions or choose a theme word for the next twelve months. I'm guilty of doing both in the past. I'm definitely a planner, and January always feels like a starting line. I found that choosing goals or themes often sets me up to feel like I've failed when I don't achieve whatever I planned or imagined, so I've quit doing both -- yet I still feel the urge every January.
As I write this post it's actually December 10th (see what I mean about planning? I'm currently 22 days ahead on blog posts.) Today I need to begin putting together some notes for my annual business meeting in January, work on finishing the last novel of 2019, and finish my prep for my guy's birthday tomorrow. 2020 won't arrive for another three weeks. Why worry about it, or anything else, for that matter?
I think it's mostly because I'm not spontaneous or organic or whatever allows people to just do stuff without planning. I need a plan before I start a project. If I'm going somewhere I've never been, I need a map. Same thing with work. I can sit down and write stuff off the top of my head, but it makes me very uneasy and super unhappy. I need at the very least a one-page outline before I begin working on a story. Although it's not particularly artistic, I've embraced this part of my process. I don't wander, I navigate.
Being navigator-minded may be why I feel that compulsion at the beginning of the year. I want to map my path in 2020 so I can start out with confidence. But if I've learned anything over the last couple years, it's that I can't anticipate what any new year will bring. If you'd told me in December 2018 that I'd become a vegan and a grandmother in 2019, for example, I wouldn't have believed you.
So how does a navigator like me not navigate 2020? I let myself plan other, smaller, easier-to-attain goals, like my annual art project. This year I mentioned that I'm going to start making a crazy quilt out of vintage silk scarves. I've already decided that I don't have to finish it by December 31st (that lets me off the disappointment hook if it takes longer than a year.) Having just that one project in mind fills the gap left by not making resolutions or choosing theme words.
Other things I'd like to do go on a mental maybe-to-do list for 2020: avoid buying new fabric or premade binding -- use what I have on hand, and make my own binding. I'd also like to use up all the batting and batting scraps I have stashed before I buy more new. Be more mindful of my textile waste, definitely. Write more of my own work in my spare time. Make another baby quilt for Oliver with my ocean wave kit. Continue to be a writing buddy. Get out in Nature and take more photographs. None of these are musts, only hopes.
Whatever the new year brings, I'd just like to be open to the possibilities, and be there for my family and friends. That feels like a plan.
Image by Victoria Borodinova.
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