Tag: D.G. Kaye

As another year comes to a close, we tend to all have flashbacks of reflection on what we accomplished this closing year. I think, like many, it feels as though this year has flown by. Or is it, the older we get, the faster we feel time fly?

For me, it feels as though the days, weeks, and months kept flying by as I worked on each project I had set goals to accomplish for the year. Last year was basically, a write off for me while my new solo life overwhelmed me at every turn after losing my husband. This year, although my grief was no less, I fought and still fight my grief daily, but I understood that I must find a way to make my life go on and in order to do so, I had to set goals for myself to accomplish feeling I was still part of the living by immersing myself into projects that helped me do so.

After coming back from last winter’s escape to Mexico, I set my intentions for the new year ahead because I always need a plan, that’s how I function. I worked on taxes, planned to write episodes for a podcast I promised myself I’d begin in 2022 and, promised myself to get back to the book I finished writing in 2019 and publish it. I also prepared my columns for Sally Cronin’s Smorgasbord Blog Magazine in my Spiritual Awareness series, as well as lots of intermittent writing for my next book on grief. Being in solitude much of the time reminded me I have to have goals and have to be busy to keep myself from dwelling on the dark side of my life. I can honestly say that I don’t think I’d be here today if it weren’t for writing. Writing is the passion that dwells within, and allows me to expel in words the gnarled mess of emotions that I live with daily. It’s my sanity. My solitary time also afforded me more time to read more books, and books are my ethereal escape into another world, another life, which gives me a welcome break from being in my own skin sometimes.

As this year comes to a close, I’m already setting goals for 2023. First and foremost on my agenda is to once again, get out of Dodge and go back to Mexico later in January. Last winter, going to Mexico for the first time without my husband, overwhelmed me, yet I went. Once there, I learned more life lessons and faced more harsh realities when I learned ‘our’ friends were no longer because my husband too, was no longer. It was another painful lesson on human behavior, but gratefully, the universe sent me the ‘right’ friends, and I forged some new and very tight relationships with new friends. We are all reuniting again next month back in Mexico, and I’m excited for my two-month escape from my real life here for a pause with an active social life – something I no longer have here. No doubts I’ll be learning some new life lessons. My tribe has been cut substantially since my husband passed as tragedy often shows us who is left in our corner when the chips are down. But the quality is excellent, showing me excess quantity was in dire need of spillage.

While away, basking in sunshine and social fulfillment, I’ll assess what my goals are for 2023, then tackle them with fresh enthusiasm, upon my return. I know I will be working on my grief book, which I also know will take a great deal of stamina and time to go through the almost 100,000 words in various rough drafts I’ve written over the last two years. I have good experience with knowing that painful writing requires distance in between revisions. Being a memoir writer means having to relive over and over with each revision and edit, the memories of what we write. I know when I wrote P.S. I Forgive You, about finding forgiveness for my mother, that the emotions that bubbled within as I reread painful memories, had me having to walk away from the computer and letting the words sit until I could gain back the heart to sit down and read it again. In between my distancing myself from the book, I worked on other projects. I assume this next book will probably be the most difficult book I will ever write. But I feel compelled to write it. So no doubt, I will need a distraction project to divert to. Thankfully, there’s never a shortage of work for a writer.

I imagine January will pass almost too quickly as I prepare for the packing and usual travel anxiety, and will remain until I land in Puerto Vallarta and finally letting out a huge exhale. As per all my winter breaks, I won’t be reading blogs on a regular schedule as I do at home, nor will I be posting anything (because I don’t like to close comments and cannot commit to responding to any in a timely fashion), but I will pop into some of your blogs sporadically when I get a few spare moments from my busyness. And upon my return in late March, no doubts I’ll have some fun stories to share about some of the shenanigans that will undoubtedly be going on in Mexico.

Thanks for keeping track of all the wonderful books I’ve read this year #Goodreads. I surprassed my goal and read 56 books! You can check them out by clicking below

Source: D.G.’s Year in Books | Goodreads

I would like to take the opportunity to wish you all a very happy and healthy new year. I always include ‘healthy’, because like my husband always liked to say, “Cubby, without good health, nothing else matters.”

x

©DGKaye2022