I suppose everyone has a time of the year where things tend to bother them more, or they are more introspective. According to the commercial calendars of western culture, this time is supposed to coincide with the New Year. Personally, I don’t find this to be the case, and I’m sure if people stopped to think about the patterns that naturally emerge in their lives, most would find that while symbolically, the New Year makes sense, it’s probably some other trigger that we find ourselves thinking about what we’ve accomplished, our regrets, our dreams and what we promise to ourselves to change.
For me, that time of the year is July, specifically, it’s the brief two weeks that I take as vacation. The two weeks that I circled from the time I put up the new calendar in January. It’s the two weeks that I day dream about while toiling away at work. It’s the two weeks that, when they finally do arrive, slip away in between sunsets and sandy beaches until I wake up to head back to work.
And that’s when it hits me – This is what I’ve been working for all year? How is it gone before I know it? And I’m left with the remainder of the summer knowing that I won’t be having time off to enjoy much of it. Maybe this quasi-depressed outlook is amplified by our location in a Canadian climate, where the precious 16 weeks of fair weather is sandwiched by months of cold. Ok, that’s a bit overly dramatic but I do wonder if it plays a role in my outlook.
Regardless of the cause, it leads down the same path each time – introspection and taking stock of what I’ve done or am still struggling with 12 months later. I think it’s because I can truly identify where I was and what I was doing the previous year at the same time that I can see my life almost as a display against that background.
Here's hoping that next year, when I look back, I'll be able to see the progress I've made. Maybe a few more of those half-finished projects around the house will see completion. Maybe one of my websites will be up and running. Maybe I'll be doing more of what I love and able to earn a few extra buck from writing. Who knows?
What I do know is for the time-being, as summer fades, I'm moving ahead to keep working at doing more of what I love - writing. I'm also making a resolution to be more positive and enjoy the things I do accomplish, no matter how small, instead of only looking ahead and being deflated by what I still have left to do. Fingers crossed!
