Become a peer specialist. This might take more than a year but that won’t stop me. I am fully committed to it. In case you don’t know, a peer specialist is someone who suffers from mental illness and uses their pain to help others like them. You don’t need a college degree (which is good because I don’t have one) but you do need a high school diploma and several letters of recommendation and many hours of training. Which I will start in January.
I’ll actually be able to knit. Not just a couple of stitches and then ask for help. At least I can tell the difference between a purl and a stitch now. Next year I’m churning out socks, hats, baby blankets. For all the future and existing cousins I have. And someday maybe I can make a sexy little top for myself.
Officially start work as a freelance author. So far my jobs have been given to me by an editor who knows my writing and I’m hoping I can expand my work in 2025. Shout out to my good friend for hooking me up for this career. I feel so so proud I finally have something I can call a career.
I don’t expect to be fluent in sign language but I would like to find someone (either deaf or hearing) who I can hold a basic conversation with in ASL. I know all the emotions so far so I can do peer therapy in another language (well, that would be a disaster of epic proportions).
Help out more on the Rockland Poet’s scene. Last week I just co hosted my first slam. It was such a rush. I love being in front of an audience and I just realized I can do it without competing.
Continue my book club. Starting a book club was one of the best things I did in 2024. We all suggest books and using random selection, pick a book. So far we have read the Library Thief, Carrie, American Gods, Out of my Mind, and Brave. Everyone always brings and we always have stimulating conversation.
Start writing a new book in addition to working on an anthology (but I don’t anticipate that the anthology will be published in the New Year). The new book is based off a true story I read in a book. It’s about recovering from trauma and the journey of a trauma therapist. Not that I would know anything about that…..
I’m getting two (TWO!!) songbooks for Christmas. You can expect many more weeks of piano in the coming months. I am looking to do a Lady Gaga week, Kelly Clarkson week and a Fall Out Boy week to name a few. I am also taking requests. I can’t make promises particularly if the songs are hard to transpose but I’ll do my best.
And besides all that I don’t know what I’ll do. It’s a time of change, not just because it is a new year but because I am going into the new year as a more mature, more independent person. It is now very realistic that eventually my boyfriend and I will move in together. I am actually making money for the first time in about six years. And (this seems kind of small and pathetic) I empty the dishwasher. Justin’s dishwasher too. I’m learning to take on new challenges head on. There is no limit as to what I will do in the new year.
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