Dear You,
It’s been a minute since we last talked, hasn’t it? How the hell are you? I’m sure my mother already told you but I just got back from Costa Rica. I hardly mean this in the negative but if there’s one thing I can count on, it’s my mother to pass along news. That’s always been my punishment when I’ve done something she doesn’t agree with: I have to be the one to tell my father.
I have two weeks here in DC and then I’m off again, for destinations domestic this time; a full two weeks in Texas for the holidays. December has always been consistently the busiest time of year for me with work–so many projects wrapping up and holiday parties and birthdays and last minute concerts and gift making.
It’s mind boggling that we’re here, not just here at the end of 2017, but here, for another letter.
When I first started Good Letters, I had all of these goals and ideas for how it would look at 2 weeks, at 2 months, at 6 months, at a year. But if there’s anything Second Hand Lions taught me it’s that sometimes you plant tomatoes and you get corn instead.
Which isn’t to say that I haven’t accomplished my goals. My goal was to write letters and make things. Every week, I have a moment where I’m not sure that I’ll be able to do it. And, with a few exceptions due to travel and logistics, every week I write a letter and make a thing. I remind myself of that when I get overwhelmed or discouraged or uncertain: you made a thing and that is enough.
My mother used to tell me about praying, “some days, all you have to do is show up.” I think about this on days when my chest is tight, on days when I need to write, on days when I need to pray–in short, I think about this most days.
Winters in DC feel impossibly long and I’ve never been good at sitting still. Winter is when I do my work, when I plan and scheme and practice and make goals. I picked up my first brush pen in January of 2016. In January 2017, I learned to rock climb and started planning a shop.
Goals are funny things. The same as people, as relationships, as anything, they change and stretch and move and shift. It’s exciting and exhilarating and a little unnerving to see the unexpected ways in which things grow.
There are a few more letters for 2017. There are a lot more goals for 2018.
Yours truly,
M
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