New Year, new you

January brings with it a rush of promises made to ourselves and on behalf of those in our lives. For many of us, this is the year we're going to 'get our selves together", make that difficult change to live healthier, or do that thing we've been putting off.

For me, the start of 2020 has been a time of deep reflection and introspection. Y'all, I'm not gonna front. 2019 didn't just kick my ass. It beat me like a red-headed stepchild that got caught with her hand in a cookie jar.

I've talked in previous blog posts about growing up without support in creative endeavors and what it's like trying to build your tool kit and your confidence. 2019 did a bang-up job stripping me of what confidence in my writing I had, and much much worse.

I can remember being about eight and watching my mom type away a business letter on this electric typewriter she had. This would have been in 1989 when home computers and pcs weren't a common thing to see in most southern homes. That typewriter was like this cool toy I never got to play with. I remember thinking then, how awesome would it be to write things people wanted, felt they needed to read?

Fast forward a few years, and my grandmother won a pc through a work program, it was deliciously horrible in the graphics department, and I loved endlessly monkeying with the thing for school projects. One of my favorite excuses was the need to do homework on it. My grandmother always obliged me, and one of the first short stories I ever wrote was on that antique.

In June of 2019, I rushed back to Texas after receiving word from my mom that my grandmother was admitted to ICU. It had been a year since I was back in the state, and then only for a few days. I made it and got to spend a few hours with her before turning in for the night. She had a good day while I was there. The next wasn't. I'll never forget the look on her face as she grabbed me, and begged me to call the rest of the family back and to let her go.

I said goodbye to a lot of things in June, and the rest of the year felt like trying to come up and back from that. I've realized how far off course I've let myself get. There is a huge difference in working and productively working to make sure you're still striving for your goals. In 2019 I smashed every work goal I set for myself. I did not do so well with regard to my writing.

So my goals for 2020 are not for a New Year, new me. I want to live healthier sure, but my goals are going to be geared toward finishing my projects, releasing content, and building my tool kit and confidence back up.

I wish everyone a Happy, healthy, and productive year. Do something kind for someone today, and I'll see you all soon.

Corbyn