A million words

This January is the anniversary of a remarkable event in our family. It was a watershed moment. That amazing pivotal adventure, which took a year to come to fruition, has me viewing life as before the event and life after; a benchmark really.

As the first month of this year comes to a close I’m using it as a point of reference for the next ten years. I try not to look too far ahead, because we are not guaranteed tomorrow, and I try not to look back on that which is writ-in-stone and unchangeable. But today has me remembering the myriad of things which took place since 2004; ten years of births, deaths, graduations, marriages, finally-got-togethers and it’s-about-time-split-ups. Overall it’s been a very good ten years with a significant speed bump which continues to cast a shadow which I will set aside for now.

If I go into my last decade’s file drawer and pull out my writing folder which must contain at least a million words, this is the resume I find.

Eight years ago I wrote a book.

Six years ago I wrote another book. 

Two years ago I started a third.

About four years ago I started a blog and then fittingly ended it on the day of Sandy Hook.

With a determination born of tragedy and reality, about two months later, I started a second blog.

In between all of those efforts I wrote thirty short stories and well over a hundred essays.

Two years ago I became a newspaper columnist. The deadline of the column and my humble fan base feeds my writer’s ego just enough to ‘carry on’ this writing obsession. And it fulfills the short-term dream of being a columnist which took over twenty years to come true.  

A little over a year ago I started a third blog which really isn’t a blog at all but rather a collection of my columns.

And always, always, there’s the memoir about my parents’ love letters. In a way the letters, particularly my father’s, are my talisman. From 1944 to 1945 every dream my dad wrote about came true. The ones not penned, only God knows, but the ones he wrote to my mother about, so longingly as something for them to share, became his to claim in the future.

And so I hope it goes with me. The last ten years have been amazing, so amazing in fact that I fear that forward can only pale in comparison. How could life possibly become better? I hope to find out that it does.

We don’t know how far the road ahead but we do know the route we’ve already traveled. Going back means taking every turn in reverse which sets us up for confusion and the very real possibility of getting lost.

I'm going forward, to live and write another million words...at least.