I’m sitting here at Mary Washington Hospital, watching my wife and newly born son sleep. Peace on Earth.
Over at The Art Of Non-Conformity, Chris Guillebeau conducts a yearly review. The two biggest questions are
What went well this year?
What did not go so well this year?
What a year indeed:
What Went Well This Year?
1. Every year (well, it’s no longer going on now) Pam Slim and Charlie Gilkey and Angela Wheeler hosts a retreat for entrepreneurs and world changers called Lift Off.
I spoke with my Boo, bought my ticket, and headed out to Phoenix, AZ for Lift Off! This was a huge step of faith/courage/gumption for me, to fly across the country by myself to meet a group of people I did not know, to follow my dreams. Saywhatnow?!
Lift Off was inspiring and informative; there are such beautiful people out there changing the world with their art. A huge shout out for the L.O.V.E crew!
2. I started a project here where I would dip into my creative well and write and ship a poem a day here. One poem I wrote in particular, I honestly almost began hyperventilating it made me so uncomfortable to publish. It seemed every atom of my being was screaming, “Don’t hit publish, you have to change this and tone that down, are you seriously going to send this out into the world?”
I decided I would feel worse if I didn’t publish than if I did, so hit “Publish” and ran out of the house. No seriously, I was about to be late for my job. The internet didn’t break, no angry mobs showed up to carry me away, to my knowledge no one made any sort of remark about the poem. So…maybe I needed to get over myself to not let my resistant ego hinder me.
3. We found out we were expecting another child! Backflips and jaw drops galore!
4. I stepped out of my comfort zone and connected with more people on the internet. There are plenty of people who poo-poo “social media”. This year in particular, I’ve gotten to meet such amazing people, which parlayed into me submitting my writing for publication for two popular websites, meeting the founder of my favorite charity (including a photo op of him holding baby girl), and being able to add value to people through my poetry/art.
What Did Not Go So Well This Year
1. Project Leap became a substantial failure. I felt inspired to write a poem a day for all of 2012. Like most things new, the beginning was so exciting, I felt like I was writing my best poetry- until around mid summer. A day missed here, 4 days missed there, each day became so much easier to not write, a determined race to the bottom.
I’ve thought on this, what failing to not do something I set out to do means to me. I feel like I didn’t take you the reader serious enough, that I could breach the contract so to speak and it would be okay. I am so sorry.
Another thing I’ve learned from this failure is, it was good for me in a sense. I think my ego gets in the way at times, failure is an effective antidote. I did write well over 200 poems this year, that’s just kwayze!
2. On a few poems, okay on a lot of my poems, I feel they were…too dang deep. Methinks I ought to lighten up a bit. 
3. On a personal standpoint, my wife’s pregnancy was extremely difficult for her; she was on bed rest from September to December. There isn’t a guide for men on how to take care of your wife, care for your 13/14/15 month old baby girl, work a full time job, and maintain your sanity. To put it bluntly, a lot of stress eating, a lot of “I have no idea what I’m doing” and my mental acuity became as sharp as a balloon. Yet, here I sit, watching Boo and son sleep healthy and well. (Baby girl is away for a few days, thank God for Grandparents!)
Looking onward to 2013, I am all kinds of excited. Clarifying how I can add value to people, esp. here at Life Unrestricted, is a welcomed challenge. There are quite a few things I want to provide here, the problem for me is to stop maven-ing out (research, research, research) and keep putting myself out there.
Thank you for reading and for those of you who have been here since the beginning, thank you so much for hanging in here. You all are fantastic and I hope your holidays are spankin’ awesome!
