Liminal

I’m rolling into plans for 2017 now that the broad strokes of the coming year have been defined. Planning things this late is weird for me – ordinarily I have ambitions and schedules and goals already mapped out in my head.

I am burning through books that I’d left half-read, thinking through ways that I can start arranging notes, building a mental to-do list when it comes to my thesis topic so I’ve got some relatively clear research goals when the lights turn green and it’s time to go.

December has become a weird, in-between state. I’m working out my contract on the current day-job, counting down the days until I can stop wearing real shoes and go back to my sneaker-clad existence. I’ve not yet started the thesis. Writing projects are scattered about, waiting to be corralled and planned.

These are the ways I trick myself into thinking I can assert control over the universe.

This morning I spent some quality time looking back at the tenets I tried to apply to 2016 and realising I did really well on two of them, okay on the third, and not so good on the fourth. I blame people far less for things that I watch or read. I don’t use the television as background noise as often, although I have slipped back into the habit of using social media while watching movies or NXT. I finished a handful of stories this year, but none of the bigger projects.

And so I start looking ahead. Figuring out what to try next year that will enact changes in my life. I’m pretty sure one off these will be fail more.

But probably not the way you’re thinking.