Posted by: julia
on Jan 22, 2012
Today is my birthday (yay!), but for those of you who've been around for awhile, you know it's also the anniversary of my cancer diagnosis (Stage 2 Hodgkin's Lymphoma). Of particular note today, however, is that it's also a Big Number anniversary: 20 years. 20 years! That's a damn big number. 20 years since I heard a new doctor in a new town say to me, "well, I've got good news and bad news. The bad news is...it's cancer. The good news is, if you had to get any kind of cancer, this is the kind to get." 20 years have passed since that big-fat-pushpin-on-the-map-of-life moment, and boy howdy am I a different, more evolved, more experienced person now. I feel both pleased and disquieted that so much time has gone by: pleased because, yeah, I kicked cancer's ass and lived to tell the tale, and disquieted because woah, how'd I get old enough to be able to so easily and clearly recall something that happened 20 years ago?
Because it feels like only yesterday, in some ways. I can so easily call up the anxiety, fear, physical pain, and grief; the courage I had to summon and sustain; the love I was surrounded with; and the sense of vertiginous change touching and transforming everything I thought I had or knew. It was a potent, transformative cocktail whose hangover will probably last my whole life, though it certainly is fading with time and with the addition of other pushpin moments to the mix. I'll always have that "cancer survivor" identity with me, even though it's not a central one to me anymore except in particular times and places.
One thing is for certain, I'm still glad that I have this personally defining moment to come back to every year, something to really remind me that life is short and uncertain and beautiful and kind (yes, kind) in its random assignation of growth-inducing suffering. I didn't enjoy the suffering, but damn I appreciate having suffered, grown, and moved on. Here's to the next 20 years--may they go by as juicy and full as the last 20, and give me as many opportunities to keep evolving as these last 20 have.
Posted by: julia
on Jan 05, 2012
Instead of making specific resolutions this year like "walk more/eat less" or "write every day" (though I have some of those too), I have decided instead that what I really want to do is set an overarching intention for the entire year ahead. In that spirit, then, I declare that 2012 is going to be the Year of Practice. It will be the year I stop planning to do things, and do them: I will marry epiphany to action. It will be the year I put into practice all the things I have learned about myself and what makes me tick, and about what I want and what makes me happy. Practice is my mantra this year, in both senses: practice in the sense of non-finalized, open-ended, continual experimenting with things to see if I can get them better, and Practice in the sense of a regular repetition of specific skills over time. I will practice creating Practices for myself: a Writing Practice, a Happiness Practice, a Parenting Practice, a "Be a better friend/wife/tzaddik" Practice, whatever.
The thing that's important to remember about practice (hey self, I'm talking to you) is that it's a journey, not a destination. I'm not resolving to achieve something specific; rather, I'm intending to continually keep myself in a rhythm of regular involvement with the things I've prioritized. I am hoping that thinking of my life as a practice will help me strike a healthy balance between ambition and forgiveness, because I need both. Yes, I want 2012 to be the year of continually transforming intention into action, but I will also keep compassion for myself and not beat myself up for the occasional slowdowns or wrong turns or mistakes (because after all, it's only a rehearsal, not the final performance).
So there it is, for the record. I'm done with pausing, I've got my priorities (at least temporarily) sorted out, and I'm ready to practice. I will train myself up and get myself in shape for the long haul of the happiness marathon that life should be (and hopefully will become). Wish me luck.
Posted by: julia
on Dec 31, 2011
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.)
