New Year's What?

I know it is August. August always feels like a new beginning. School starts. Summer is over. We all feel a bit older, yeah? 

I found this list I made in 2016 when I first moved to Savannah: 

Goals for 2016: 

Professional Goals: 
Write at least an hour each day.
Read as much as I can get my hands on. 
Revise and send out work.
Meet IRL the local poets here in Georgia. 
Take more photographs. 
Send that work out too. 
Research MFA programs. 
Send out chapbooks and whole book. 
Set up Etsy store for framed art. 

Personal Goals: 
Find a church. Go. 
Write handwritten letters to people I love. 
Keep in touch. 
Find time 3x a week to do something physical. 
Run.***
Breathe. 
Find a counsellor. Go. 
Find a massage therapist. Go. 
Find a nice way to turn down dating invitations. *Keep to it. 

The really cool thing about this list is the only thing I have yet to do is the etsy shop for my professional goals and find a church for personal (we have been to a few, still looking for the one that clicks)..  

But look too what these goals yielded in both 2016 and 2017. That book that I sent out became a published collection! I toured with it. It is on Amazon.com. I know a lot of local poets and writers now and they are fabulous and supportive. I did a lot of breathing. A lot of breathing. Two galleries hung my photographs. I bought a house. Gravel Hill. A five bedroom plantation house on just about four acres and near enough to the city. I have bees again. Land. Trees. I lost 20 more lbs. My kids rocked their first year of public school. I accepted my first dinner invitation and it was magical, healing, and that's all I will say about that. 

And through it all I wrote, sent out work, read, talked about writing. 

This list felt impossible when I made it. Impossible. 

This new list feels that way too: 
Goals for 2107/2018 

Professional: 
Get up the online store
Finish screenplay draft
Revise book 2 enough to send out first half as a chap
Update camera equipment
Blog once a week
Grow the writers' retreat
Find full time employment that still meets my parenting goals
Host a new writer's group (idea might work)
​Poetry Reading in NYC

Personal: 
Find a church, go.
Regain lost muscle tone
Workout 3x a week
Walk everyday 
Eat better, more vegetables
Get porch repaired and painted

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