Let me start by saying: the bar for ‘fantastic’ was set awfully low.
This time last year, everything was up in the air. I’d just moved twice, and I was looking at a third move within the next week. My financial situation was dire enough that I really wasn’t sure if I’d be able to afford to stay in that apartment for more than a few months. My cat – probably my best friend, and certainly one of the few constants in my life since I was thirteen years old – had died that past summer. I’d lost most of my interest in photography, and I was starting to wonder about the whole writing thing.
It didn’t take much to improve on that. Hell – as long as things didn’t get any worse, I’d have counted myself lucky.
Things didn’t get worse. Some things actually got much better.
The apartment I moved into in January was a vast improvement over any I’d lived in for at least seven years. I’m still not fond of the apartment building, or the neighbourhood – I’m probably going to move again in the spring – but the apartment itself is wonderful. By the end of February, the money issues had been sorted.
I started studying Japanese. It’s slow-going, but I’m really enjoying it. I haven’t undertaken a challenge like this in years, and now I wonder why.
In the summer, I spent a bit of time exploring parts of the province that I’d never seen before. It wasn’t much – not enough to satisfy my wanderlust – but it was more than I’d managed to do in the few years previous. It was enough to make me pick up a camera again, at least occasionally.
In June, I adopted a new kitten. Lucy has been… interesting. I’m convinced that there’s some feral cat – or possibly even one of the smaller wild cats we have in the area – in her not-too-distant ancestry. I’ve never known a domestic cat whose wild instincts seem so close to the surface. But she’s clearly adopted me. She’ll hiss at any stranger that comes into the apartment for more than five minutes, but she wakes me up in the middle of the night just to purr and push her face into mine.
It took most of the year, but I finally started writing properly again in September. I was doing really well, too, until the beginning of December, when a computer disaster managed to wipe out 70,000 words, plus the backup.
Clearly, the year wasn’t entirely fantastic.
I haven’t started trying to put that draft back together, though I fully intend to get back to writing properly next week. I did use the opportunity to finally get off my butt and start a writing group. We’re still finding our feet – I knew going in that not much would happen until the new year – but I think it’s going to work out.
‘Fantastic’ might be a bit of a stretch, but… you know what? I don’t care. Given where I was at the end of 2008, 2009 was pretty bloody fantastic.
Done.
