2024: A Year in Review (or queen of her own life)

Since it’s that time when some take stock of the year in the rearview and set goals for the year ahead, I thought I’d chime in. With the former part, at least. 2024 was such a year of professional and personal growth for me. 

Highlights:

1. All sons moved out—and are well on their way to happily carving out their own lives. 

2. Garrett graduated from Western, and Ethan graduated from Carleton. 

3. Lots of skiing, golf, soccer, and time with my boys and friends rounded out my calendar.

4. I saw Springsteen in concert. Twice!

5. I wrote a second novel, Secrets We Share, which is vastly different from my first. The greatest challenge was writing in the third person point-of-view & writing multiple-point-of-view stories. 

6. I embraced the scathing parts of the writing process by hiring a skilled professional editor to review my two completed manuscripts.

7. I filed my official retirement papers after 30 years of teaching

8. I outlined the third novel I intend to write and am thrilled with its direction

9. I learned how to write decent short stories. I wrote two I'm particularly proud of, and submitted them to a prestigious CBC writing competition. (I’ll keep the world posted:-)

10. In December, I welcomed a roommate. It seems to be going well, though one of my two cats vehemently disagrees!  (Said roommate's lovely, albeit big, dog is still sure my sweet tortie is a squirrel, and my kitty has yet to prove him wrong.)

    
    

Lessons learned:

• I still love teaching

• I write YA well

• Designing a web page is difficult

• Making sleep a priority pays off

• Time in nature still recharges me

• I half-enjoy playing nets in soccer, and, some days, I am not half-bad

• My female friendships are enough to fill my emotional reservoir

• I can survive and thrive without several soccer games a week

• I should have attended the teachers’ coaches banquet throughout my career. So fun and so many lost years!

• My CTC crew is like family, too.

• I can successfully ignore those who struggle to stay in their lanes. ‘Unbothered’ is my new mantra—handed to me late in 2024 by a former student turned cherished colleague

• You cannot change others’ opinions of yourself (thus, I finally stopped caring and trying!)

• Having others inspect and dissect your writing is not for the faint of heart. Think: ripping off a freshly healed scar and pouring iodine on the wound. Repeatedly. 

• The publishing world is ridiculously tough to break into, but I will forge forward.

• Lastly, I am capable of so very much.

So let’s raise a glass to 2024, and hopefully, it did not knock you on your ass. And if it did, raise a glass to your resilience. You are stronger today than you were yesterday. Focus now not on the sandy or snowy path you may have left behind you but on the excitement of the footprints you have not left yet.

And focus on yourself for a change instead of changing for others. One of my favourite movies this time of year is The Holiday. Perhaps you’ve seen it. In it, Eli Wallach plays famous screenwriter Arthur Abbott, who shares much wisdom. In one particularly pithy scene, he explains to Kate Winslet's character, "In the movies, we have leading ladies, and we have the best friend. [Isris] I can tell you are a leading lady, but for some reason, you are behaving like the best friend." Indeed. Wallach, by the way,  was 90 years old when The Holiday was filmed. Perhaps he knew a thing or two:-)

So, be the leading lady of your own life—queen of your life, if you will. Prioritize yourself. Listen to your heart. Note the energy others impart after they have left the gift of your presence. And do not be afraid to consider your perspective more often than you have in the past because“...life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all.”