#yearly

inspired by this tweet:

From Dictionary.com

I started doing my reflections long before I ever thought about an invocation. The idea was posed to me as something hopeful and poetic; something meaningful as we invoke - in a few short paragraphs - our hopes for the coming year.

I've tried that, for sure. Sometimes, I've been successful with the writing part of that. But I've learned in my decades of surviving on this death world called Earth (if you get that reference and tell me, you are worthy of surviving a death world for reading this far into one of my ponderous ponderation posts.)

Hope requires work. Effort and energy and focus. Determination and grit. Hope isn't easy. The best poetry happens by accident and we usually live it before we realize what it was. Meaning happens when we're willing to look at things as they are and still want to live the way we think things should be. I could invoke inspiration. I could invoke creativity. I could invoke productivity. I could invoke a whole long list of amazing things. All of them are things I've studied or written about or even meditated on. (Not always successfully.)

I could invoke thriving. A nice concept and one I've managed to do a time or three.

Instead, I want to remember. I want to remember some of the daydreams I've had. Some of the goals I've never reached. I want to remember all of those goals I have reached. I want to remember the times I stumbled, the times I fucked up, the times I succeeded (often in spite of myself), and the things I've learned, forgotten, and rediscovered.

Everything takes effort.

I have chronic illness. Chronic pain. Chronic fatigue. Everything takes more effort than I'm told it should. (I actually spend a lot of time arguing with people about how much effort things take me. Which takes effort. Really?) To say nothing of how much effort I wish things took.

I am neurodivergent.

'Reality' has never meant what I've told it does. Dyslexia. Dyscalculia. (And dysgraphia, but that's beside the point.) ADHD. OCD. Etc. Anxiety is a side-effect of all of the above. I've dodged the worst of depression and anhedonia, but I have synesthesia. Colors have flavors. Sounds have textures. Letters and sounds have colors. It's bizarre to others, but normal to me. (Yes, colors having flavors means I am always tasting things and I never quite get the choice to do so. The world has flavor and most of it is bad. But I am always the friend who knows what all his friends taste like? I know. I know. Tasteless joke.)

Nothing is going to change those things. Nothing.

No amount of mindfulness. No amount of drugs and therapy. I cannot drink enough water or do enough yoga to not be constantly sick and feel constantly sick. I cannot do enough supplements or build the miracle diet that will make me feel better. And going outside? Fuck that. Do you know how many allergies I have? Or what the weather is like here in central Texas? (Also: did you know there are other people outside?)

(Sometimes, misanthropy and being asocial aren't problems. Or solutions. They're side effects.)

So, instead, I'm going to invoke the things that have never failed me. The things I have been able to rely on every day since I became consciously aware of them. I am invoking preparation and I am invoking planning ahead and I am invoking want.

I know. Planning and preparation are boring. But then again - so am I! (Just ask my students. They will tell you. At great length.) They are useful, though.

Want, though? That one's dangerous. We really don't think about that word enough, do we? We think of it in terms of food, of sex, of leisure, of things. And there is nothing wrong with wanting any of those things. I have wanted all of those things at various times in my life. Some quite recently!

But I also want to be a success story. I want to do things - the things I have chosen to do. I want to do the things I know I am capable of. I want to do the things I'm not sure I'm capable of. I want to accidentally do things I never thought about doing. (Well, some of them will be done on purpose, but if I do them by accident, it's slightly cooler. Trust me on this - I've never been cool, so I've had a lot of time to study what being cool looks like.)

Want is all about choice though, isn't it? What we choose to do to get what we want and what we choose when we know we shouldn't have what we want. Making those choices either reflects our ambition to strive for things or our discipline to act in the way that is best for us. (This may hurt some of the self-help and productivity crowd I exist on the fringes of - but wanting is at the core of most personal goals, yes?)

I've striven pretty well in the past. I've demonstrated to myself that I can have discipline and that discipline is (often) good for me.

I want to write a lot this year. I want to get a whole mess of projects knocked out. I want to get some of the things I've been trying to get to for years off my list and set aside. (I also want to write a lot this year. Which makes this year like every other year since I was in middle school. So there's that. I have practice at that one!)

I can plan and prepare for those.

I can set myself up to accomplish those things. I can do that in a lot of ways - I can think my way through the decisions I'll have to make. The priorities I will have to set. The effort I will need to put in, and the many and myriad forms of discipline I will need to apply. I can figure out the supplies I'm going to need. (Pens. Notebooks. A lot of notebooks. Boxes. Duct tape. A metric fuckton of duct tape. Boxes. Did I mention I will need boxes this year? Because I will need boxes this year.)

I can plan ahead. A lot of those priorities, those decisions, that discipline is best applied when I know things. My schedule, when I can do and can't do certain things. Last year, I did not do any real planning. 2024 had been a pretty good year for me. I made new friends. I wrote a lot. I integrated into a new, amazing fandom (hello, my She-Ra people brave enough to read this far!) I wrote a lot. I did some great work at the job I got paid for. I edited for friends. I taught some very cool people. I wrote a lot.

But 2024 ended with me just out of the hospital, which sucked. I didn't really set myself up for 2025, and while I cannot and will not say that 2025 was a bad year, it was not as successful or as fun as 2024.

Hells, I didn't even a planner or prime notebook. (If you know me, you know that I was not okay at the start of 2025. Those are words I don't often utter - out loud, in print, or in my own head.) This year, I have both a prime notebook and a planner. I have a planning system at my fingertips, I have ordered my supplies, and I am ready to go. (Mostly. Moreso than last year, anyway.)

I can't really show or share all of my 2025 goals, but they are precise, concise, and they all follow the basic rule for me and goals: I care about accomplishing them. They have meaning to me, and I have skin in the game. (They are not, however, SMART goals. Because I am too smart to use SMART goals for myself. That's right: SMART goals are not smart. Fight me. I will die on this hill. I'm serious. Trust me. You can take me down. I'm old and slow.)

However, I can and will share my writing goals for the year. Such as they are.

(Please ignore the terrible handwriting of the last two items on this list.)

And to write more of my one-shots. I really need to write more one-shots. I have ideas for so many. I need to write more on (and finish!) the Red Creme Fizz stories. More Babylon 5 stories. Catch up on Defiance side stories.

I'll probably post something long and boring about my planning system in a few days. Because I want to. Because there is a tiny chance that it will help someone. And because it will give me a chance to rant about one of the most useful things humans have ever created/discovered and that people underestimate and dismiss - or mock and laugh at. (Or, sometimes, are scared of.)

I speak, of course, of lists. (Trust me, I will do my best to sell you on how awesome lists are.)

I can hear some of you staring at me. I can hear the stares. I can feel the offense and frustration and downright eyerolls. Because I'm just invoking hard work! Things that have to be done.

You know what? You're right about that. I am doing exactly that.

Because that's how we make sure the next year is as good as we can make it. By doing the things we know work for us. By trying new things we think might work. By continuing to strive, every day, to do as much as we can to do as much as we want -