I’m sitting on the couch of a rented house, looking out over the gray and foggy ocean out here in Stinson Beach. I’m here with my extended family on our annual holiday vacation, and I’ve finally found a moment of calm in the midst of the competing demands on my attention to sit down at the computer and start my ritual of year’s-end reflection.
So what was 2011 like? Well, just like every year, it was a continuation of many of the previous year’s patterns and issues, mixed up with some new influences starting up and some new patterns which began to coalesce and become clearer as the year ripened. If forced to summarize (which is kinda the point of this type of blog entry), I would say that this past year was the Year of Becoming. I started out the year feeling like I’d been doing a lot of wrestling with mid-life crisis and identity issues, and I was getting more optimistic and clearer about where things might be going, but I still wasn’t feeling totally crystal. And now, at the end of 2011, surprise! I’m still not totally crystal (are we ever?), but things are feeling more solid now—or at least, less like a crossroads and more like the next leg of the journey.
There’s been a lot of identity work and a lot of happiness work this year, epitomized by a lot of processing changes in career and desired direction(s) for how I spend my days. At the beginning of 2011, we were dealing with the scale-back of Archer Web Solutions; here at the end of 2011, we’ve just finally closed it down for good. I’ve retained a handful of clients for whom I’ll still do occasional web site maintenance or consulting work, but as an individual freelancer rather than as a business. Josh has pulled out completely (though thankfully he’ll always be a resource for me to help troubleshoot when and if I need it) and is looking ahead to his next venture, Iocari Games. With AWS finally about to be in our rear-view mirror, I feel like I’m finally beginning to get some perspective on how the four years or so of effort, activity and meaning that our business represented fit into my overall life story arc. I’m grateful for all the lessons that our business taught me and for the epiphanies I gleaned from our challenges and triumphs, and I’m just now, finally, finding myself able to unclench and let those four years and all that effort go now, and look back on all of it with more compassion and appreciation than regret or anxiety. (This sounds like it should have been a pretty easy or obvious process, but like many life lessons, it only seems easy or clear in hindsight.)
For me, 2011 was all about the struggle of trying to figure out how to spend my post-AWS days in the most personally fulfilling and authentic way possible—from the first “beginner” steps of figuring out what was fulfilling and authentic in the first place, through the harder intermediate stage of figuring out how to sustain an honest belief and inner confidence that what I consider fulfilling and authentic is actually ok and deserving of a try. Here at the end of 2011, I am patting myself on the back for a moment (good job, me, you did a lot of hard personal work this year!) before taking a deep breath and getting ready to plunge into the advanced stage: actually practicing a personally fulfilling and authentic life without getting distracted by “shoulds” or “what ifs” or anxieties around others’ judgments. Put another way, I spent pretty much this entire year figuring out what made me happy and whether or not I deserved it, and now I’m ready to actually practice happiness. I am really looking forward to finding out where I got with everything when I do this again this time next year, but I’m also trying to stay open and experimental or at least unattached to any specific outcome(s).
So what, you might be asking, did I finally decide was personally fulfilling, authentic and happy-making? Writing. Creating. Talking to people. Being an artist who uses art to help others discover, reclaim and appreciate their full, complex, freaky selves. Yeah, none of that will likely be as financially lucrative as other kinds of work that are more traditionally supported in our culture, but a) I’m incredibly lucky enough to not be forced to make pure financial return the only or even the heavyweight in my life-decision-making processes, and b) I’m truly trying to live my belief that there’s more than one bottom line to value (and being “paid” in happiness is much more awesome than being paid in dollars). Again, in hindsight, all that seems pretty obvious (especially to those who have known me for a long time), but it’s worth living out loud about it by saying it in print.
For posterity, here’s a super brief run down of some of the things that were memorable from 2011:
In general:
I spent less and less time on web work, and more and more time on writing and art.
I got involved with my synagogue’s Chevra Kadisha (Burial Society), and had some really meaningful experiences.
I continued to work on collaborative projects with my friend Jeff, and helped shepherd Co-ignite through several evolutions, which eventually morphed into project-based involvement only.
Josh and I committed to a process of “intentional life design” together, which included everything from house remodeling to calendar re-jiggering to improving our relational communication.
In specific:
In January, I turned 42 (the answer to the question of Life, The Universe and Everything, as all good Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fans know), and threw myself a giant Hitchhiker’s Guide party, complete with Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters and a gourmet ice cream taste-off. I’m not sure how or whether I’m going to be able to top that for this year’s party...I think I’ll have to take a year off.
In February, Eli turned 10 (with a sword-fight party!) and we went to DunDraCon (we’re having more and more fun at gaming cons these days...all part of our happiness work).
In March, I went to FOGcon (a new and great little local writer’s con), and we did a lot of hanging out with friends.
April was pretty quiet, May had KublaCon, and June brought the beginning of our crazy summer of vacation action. First Josh went to PaizoCon and then we went to Stinson for a week+ of family reunion with the entire Dvorin clan, in honor of my grandmother’s 90th birthday. Then in July I had my first Freak Flag Making Party over the Independence Day weekend, after which we headed out to Hawaii for two weeks in Maui with my brother’s family and my parents (not to make anyone jealous, but that was AWESOME). In August, Eli went off to sleep away summer camp again, and after that Josh and I went on a belated anniversary trip to the World Science Fiction Convention in Reno, where we got to hang out with all the crazy writer peeps. Not long after that, I went to Burning Man for the first time (which I’ve written about more extensively earlier in this blog), and then suddenly it was Fall and the start of a new school year, wherein our boys both finally were on the same schedule in the same place (the only year this will be true, sadly).
In October I found out my novel was going to be published (this was a huge personal highlight) by Hadley Rille Books, and armed with that good news, I went to the World Fantasy Convention in San Diego (and had a terrific time). In November I took my Fly Your Freak Flag High project to the North Bay Burning Man Decompression event, which was awesome, and we got a new car—also awesome. December was full of holidays and parties and good times with family, and we adopted our new dark beauty of a kitty, Layla. Suddenly: poof! Another year gone.
It doesn’t seem like all that much when you do a review like this, but that’s because I’ve edited out nearly all the satisfying, challenging, growth-full and/or joyous ordinary moments that days are made of, and all the rhythm of days that turn into weeks, moons that wax and wane, seasons that fade into the next, and holidays and rituals that keep us tuned in to the cycle of the year. That all being said, 2011 turned out to be a relatively happy and healthy year for me and my family, despite living in the midst of a lot of national and global unhappiness, and for this I am grateful. Really I am.
Happy New Year! Here’s to 2012 being a year filled with all kinds of happiness, for everyone—a year of passion and compassion, of collaboration and celebration, with only the minimum amount of pain and suffering required for necessary growth and change.