24 For 24
I hope that everyone’s having a good January so far.
It’s been a rough start to the year as I got sick at the end of 2023, and it lingered into the early days of 2024. But I’ve seemed to have reached the other side of the viral infection that I caught.
A warm welcome to all the recent subcribers to my Substack page that came from Beth Kempton’s Winter Writing Sanctuary. I need to post more here, even if it feels as if I’m overextending myself with all the other platforms that I’m on showcasing my writing and poetry. But after seeing everyone else’s Substack pages, I need to put more focus here. Hence why I forgot to include my year in review on this page and kept it just to my website. This is the first post of this year and hopefully, it won’t be the last.
The titile of this post refers to Gretchen Rubin’s list of things that she tries to get done each year. I was listening to her Happier podcast on the morning of December 6th, 2023 when she and her sister Elizabeth were going over their 23 things that they wanted to get done in 2023.
I didn’t have my own list. But among the things that I did last year, was wrtie a chapter in the best-selling multi author book, Going Places. I took a fourteen day escorted group trip to Greece that stopped on the islands of Crete and Santorini. I visited my friend and Made To Do This colleague Wendy Harrop at her home in Bolton, Massachussets for my first actual solo trip. I read at an in-person open mic for the first time at the New York Poetry Festival on Governor’s Island and expanded my poetic reach by starting channels on YouTube, TikTok and Swell. And I started a new job as a data entry clerk for a city agency here in NYC, and was subsequently hired full time.
I’m sure that this paragraph doesn’t do the entire year of 2023 justice. As all of this happened in a year where family health issues loomed large over everything that had happened.
With last year briefly summarized, I came up with 24 things that I hope to get done before the end of this year.
And without further adeu. And so it will be…
24 for 24
1. Perform at another in person open mic
2. Make it past the probationary period at work
3. Find another interest besides writing
4. Get poetry book #2 off the ground
5. Join another multi author book
6. Take a long weekend trip before Croatia happens
7. Begin planning for the 2025 trip to Spain
8. Clear out the CD cabinet and the bookshelf
9. Attend more events with Closer
10. Upgrade my phone
11. Make more of an effort to connect with friends
12. Return to the Phineas Wright House
13. Attend more concerts
14. Wear my leather jacket more
15. Finish the three wines in the Saraceni Wines box
16. Keep the expresso and cornetto routine on Monday going
17. Celebrate my birthday, Christmas and New Year’s
18. An in person Made To Do This reunion in NYC
19. Take a new photo of my sister and I
20. Freshen up the design in my room
21. Reduce the time spent scrolling on my devices
22. Book a Manhattan By Sail Golden Hour cruise
23. Find a way to stop the downward emotional spirals
24. Take better care of myself
Will I get through every item on this list, probably not. But it’ll be interesting to see me try and this list gives me something approaching a goal to shoot for.
Let’s see where the next three hundred and fifty four days will take me and take us.