Reflection should be a year-long activity but as creatures of habit it’s more prominent during the time we replace our “Dogs in Pools” calendar with a “Lighthouses of the East Coast” one. I’m no different, except my new calendar is this.

It’s been an unusual year to say the least. A frame by frame recap isn’t necessary and truth be told I’m not interested in looking back. I’d rather take each individual thread of the year, wrap them into a ball, and place it on the shelf next to previous year’s. This year’s twine of reflection just happens to be larger than normal. I can pull it down and look at it later. Or better yet, not.

There are two takeaways from the year, one an observation and the second an idea I’ll bring into the next revolution of the planet around the sun.

The observation, while not entirely new,  is I’ll never be the creative person I envisioned. That sounds harsher than it is, it doesn’t mean I can’t be creative or do it well, but I’ve been around this world long enough to see they types of creative persons there are and I fall into the practical side of creativity. I’m too left-brained. I give a fuck too much. I don’t see what truly creative people see. I’m all function, little form. Come to think of it I’m not that great at function or form. Shit.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. You could make the argument some of the most popular writers, musicians, and actors work from the practical side of the aisle (I would argue the best come from a more innate place but our society rarely places the best and most popular tag together) and so there is a place for us color-by-number types.

It’s not a better or worse debate, nor is it a roadblock to creative success. It is the self-realization that I will probably always tend to call things blue, no matter what shade of blue they are. Meanwhile my more innate friends see things in cobalt or cerulean. Yes, I had to look up “cerulean”.

The trick is how best to utilize this understanding. In the beginning I may have to live with the idea of telling a good story until I can write a good story. My writing may just be entertainment, not life-changing. Or maybe through effort, love of the craft, experience, and exploring my inner innate-ness (is it possible I just haven’t found it yet?) one day things will be azure, or teal. Until then I’m okay with blue, after all it is my favorite color.

 

The thought (I hesitate to use the word pledge or god forbid….resolution) for the New Year is somewhat born from the previous observation. I think every new year brings some kind of new push and more often than not they are soon forgotten or never well executed. They’re always some form of “Be a better person this year” or “Try to live in the now,” and I’m done with that.

The idea- and I might as well start now and admit this hasn’t been something I’ve done well the past few years- is to be honest with myself. Honest in a very brutal way. Honest in what I can accomplish as a writer. Honest with who I am as a person. Honest with who I want in my life. Honest with my limitations. Honest in my relationships. Honest with where I am at in my life. Honest with my honesty.

It’s a simple premise complicated by the fact that living up to self-awareness based goals is %$@& hard when you yourself are judge, jury, and scorekeeper. I have a scale to measure the goal of losing ten pounds. There’s a finish line at the end of the half-marathon I want to complete. Being honest with oneself? Apple hasn’t invented the mirror to measure that yet.

So, I trudge on. Not only learning about myself but putting the knowledge into action. Last year was last year. Maybe every year about this time I have this same sort of optimism but this year feels different. Less hope, more action. Less questions, more answers. And most of all, more honesty.