Usually the week between Christmas and New Year is a liminal time for me. It floats not quite part of the year I’ve just been through, but also not belonging to the year that hasn’t yet started. I often use this week to create my annual collection of blog entries and journal entries into a book. Creating that book becomes a year-in-review and feels pivotal to me figuring out my focus and priorities for the year to come.
This year is different. My focus for 2025 showed up whole before I ever had a chance to review anything. And this week feels very much like a preparatory space for 2025 when things will change. My word for 2024 was bloom. It was a gift year when I got to inhabit my writer self more fully than I have in any other period of my life. I got to teach. I got to run crowdfunding for Structuring Life to Support Creativity. I got to focus and write my book. It was also a year of running frantically from project to project, trying to stretch myself to cover everything and trying to make the financial ends meet. I am so grateful for the blooming I got to do. I am exhausted by the running. 2025 brings a big shift. That shift is reflected in the priorities I have for this year (you can contrast with my 2024 priorities here.)
In 2025 I will:
Entrench. This is a combat word. I wish I didn’t need a combat word. I will be building fortifications to protect my self, my creative projects, and my precious people. I need to be part of creating places of safety and part of reinforcing important institutions. The most personally impactful part of this priority is that I need to go find a job that will give me a reliable paycheck. I’m not sure which job or on what time schedule, but this huge shift in the pattern of my life is coming and it is necessary. I need to be personally and financially stable enough to build sheltered places that can protect my second priority.
Grow. I need to grow creatively. I need to be able to explore new thoughts and new ways of expressing those thoughts. I need to plant the seeds of new projects and nurture them to see what they might become. I need to make sure that I am growing connections with people and communities and participating in the growth of others as well as myself.
Complete. I need to follow through on promises I’ve made and projects that are in process. I have mentoring which I’m enjoying and want to see through. I have SLSC that needs to come out in print and audio. I have commitments to teach, Schlock books to finish, and contracts still in process. I want to honor all of these things and not leave any of them dangling.
The year that is coming is going to be a year of work. I’m spending the last few days of 2024 preparing for it.