I’m back! I’ve missed this blog during the past couple of weeks. My favorite blogger, Andrea Scher, encouraged her readers to answer the following questions in order to declare 2007 complete:

1. What do you want to acknowledge yourself for in regard to 2007?
2. What is there to grieve about 2007?
3. What else do you need to say about the year to declare it complete?

Here are my answers:

1. I would like to acknowledge that I created some beautiful things in 2007. I have been realizing how much I love art and am proud of the difficult decision I made to leave my landscape architecture program. I was accepted to the Minneapolis College of Art and Design’s graphic design program, which I’ll begin this month. I started this blog in 2007. I love reading your comments and hearing from people that they’ve been reading it, but, even if nobody read it, it would still be an enjoyable, therapeutic activity for me. Patrick got a job that inspires him this past year. I love seeing an inspired Patrick. And inspiration is contagious.

2. I grieve the fact that Patrick’s dad was sick for all of 2007. There is a light at the end of this tunnel – Patrick will be donating a kidney to him in the next couple of months, after which point Patrick’s dad should finally start to feel better.

I grieve the fact that I have not been good at maintaining contact with people whom I see infrequently. I also grieve the loss of a certain type of ambition in myself. This is actually a good thing for me, but it is still hard. I used to feel certain that I would be the expert on or boss of something big. I thought I’d definitely make a lot of money. But I don’t think so anymore. And this is ok. It is the result of more clearly defining what success means to me right now. I am very happy with where I am in life, but every time I hear about a peer becoming a doctor or getting a promotion, I feel a brief urge to prove myself, to somehow convey that I too could have done that if I wanted to. This is something I will be working on in 2008.

3. I’ve said all I need to say. I declare 2007 complete! May 2008 be a year of creation and connection!

release

Artwork by *abro*.