Looking Back, Looking Ahead

I've been meaning to write down my goals for 2006, but that focusing issue I mentioned in my last post made that difficult. I think arriving at the end of 2005 was just a tad overwhelming. It's hard to imagine that in the space of a year I've become a mother, celebrated three years of marriage and five years of a relationship, suffered through the first week away from my son, had my first root canal, my first moderate speed car accident, my first case of shingles, my first major surgery, my first complications from major surgery, my second MRI.... You know, I think I'll stop there lest I overwhelm myself again. Suffice to say, 2005 was a very busy, very challenging year, but it brought the best reward I've ever had.

About this time three years ago, I saw a lot of people on the internet celebrating that 2002, the year from hell, was over. 2002 was a bumpy year for a lot of folks in the writing blogoverse. I wasn't spared from the bumps: 2002 was the year that the identity I had built for myself for twelve years was torn away from me, and after six years of training for a career in academic research or teaching science at the very least, I found myself working as a secretary. My ego had been thoroughly whipped, my health had taken a severe beating, and my psyche was reeling from shock. But 2002 was the year Mark and I got married in a beautiful ceremony shared by our family and friends. And 2002 was also the year that my muse exploded out of the tiny box I had shoved her into a long time ago and tried to ignore. Given those two amazing experiences, I have never been able to look at 2002 in a negative light.

I find myself looking at 2005 in much the same way. Sure, I had to deal with a lot of annoying health issues--some more serious than others. Sure, I had to put up with a terrible job that managed to get worse not better. Sure, I had to reshuffle my writing goals and projects as my free time became less and less. But by the end of the year, I was healthy, happy, had a definite date for the end of the DDJ, and had a healthy, beautiful baby boy whose smiles make just about anything bearable. How can 2005 be a bad year?

And after surviving such a jam-packed year, I find myself looking at 2006 in a truly optimistic light. I mean, if I can come up on the flipside after all that I've been through in one year, then I can do it again. And again. And again. I've got Mark, I've got Andrew, and I've got my identity back.

2005 was a landmark year. Mark and I have been together for five years, married for three. We welcomed our first child into this world and have survived the insanity of the first three months with a newborn. We looked adversity in the face and said, "Game on." 2006 promises to be another big year. Mark will defend his doctoral thesis no later than July 14. He'll start his career, hopefully in a position that let's me stay at home and write. By the end of this year, Mark will have a couple more letters to add to his name, and he'll have finished a very long, amazing journey. By the end of the year, we could be living in our first home in Arizona. By the end of the year, I could have a revised novel completed and making the rounds to agents and editors. By the end of the year, Drew will be talking, walking, eating solid food, and who knows what else, knowing the way the little guy operates. By the end of the year, I may be thinking about getting pregnant again--afterall, I'd rather have Baby the Second before I'm 30, and I'll be turning 28 in June.

Looking back I see strength in the face of challenge, support when strength just wasn't there, tears, joy, smiles, accomplishment. Looking ahead, I see so many opportunities and, for the first time, knowing the next challenge is lurking to strike when I least expect it doesn't send my control-freak, perfectionist nature into a tizzy. There's nothing like motherhood to make you take life in more livable, lovable doses.