Out with the Old and in with the New

            It is done. The degree has been collected, the tassel flipped, and the notes from the semester have been trashed. Four years of stuff specifically for college has been brought home and meshed with the things left alone, everything organized in preparation for the day that I have to move it all out again, into an entirely new place. I hope that day comes within the next six months. I have to admit that it is nice to have my stuff all in one place again, to know that I’m not going to be packing it all back up in two weeks to go back to school. I’ve been trying to sort through twenty-one years of junk, asking myself the question “will I want to take this when I move out?” If not, it’s either trash or the donate pile. It is amazing the things that we can accumulate over the years. The sad part is, for me at least, most of what I have is books and notebooks, composition books filled and some not so filled with stuff I wrote from middle school all the way up through my senior year of high school. I can’t get rid of that stuff. It is part of my evolution as a writer and for me, it’s fascinating to have.

            A new year dawns and with it, a new chapter of my life, one that both thrills and terrifies me. What happens next is up to me. There’s no college to head off to, no more education to secure what I’m going to be up to for the next four years. It’s just an open road, one that is very foggy and no doubt filled with potholes. As if the road I am leaving behind didn’t have enough potholes of its own.

            I’m leaving behind a year that didn’t quite yield everything I wanted, but I got everything I needed. I also had some things taken from me, a dear loved one that even now I can’t believe is gone from this world. Does this ever go away? Feeling that it is wrong, that that person should be here. That’s how I feel about Pawpaw at this point. I dreamed of him again, and the weird thing was in the dream, I smelled the cologne he used and it sent a sharp pain right through the heart of me. I don’t think that I’ll ever stop feeling like this. And I was almost hit with an even sharper sword, with a friend who was so close to knocking on heaven’s door that I almost despise that Guns N Roses song now. But that means that I have a lot to be thankful for. The continued health of my three beautiful nephews, the lives and happiness of my friends and family, the love of my Bear, and the simple fact that I still have all ten fingers to type with. Remember the small things.

            So, I did not quite get a blog every week like I had intended at this time last year. But somehow I still had 52 blogs before I posted this one, and I had deleted all up to what I posted last December and I have deleted posts from this year that I decided I didn’t like. That’s not too shabby, but 2013 is going to be better. Maybe now that I’ve got  a degree, maybe it’s time to start seriously looking at getting published. As in, shooting for finishing a manuscript and maybe even finding an agent to represent my work. Who knows? I may be sitting in the same room, at the same desk, at the same computer that I was a  year ago, but I’m worlds away and I hope you are too. What the new year will bring is anyone’s guess, but I don’t think I want to sit around playing the guessing game anymore.

            Happy New Year all, from the Kelswitch. Over and out.