I took the summer off. Obviously.

It's hard for me to not constantly be doing something. If I'm not in process with something I feel like life is passing me by ... like, quite frankly, my existence is meaningless. My therapist has asked me over the years to ask myself why this is, and it's an ongoing conversation I have with my head. "If you were to slow down, to not make plans or start businesses or create projects, what would you have?" I know it's an attempt to pinpoint the fact that if I peeled away the layers of 'doing' I would have to just 'be'. Who am I? What is my purpose? Very zen, I get it. Much harder to act upon than to pontificate about however.

So the fact that I set up this blog thingy, with every intent over the last year to write a couple times a week and use it as the backbone to starting a consulting business and whatever else that might bring, and then struggled to keep up with it and just stopped writing altogether last spring ... well, I consider this a huge success. Here's why:

My goal this year, the one that was hidden in my heart, was to truly let the experience of the first year of life wash over me. To live in the moment with my newborn. To catch all the precious little changes and monumental awakenings that happen to a human being as they move from completely helpless to walking and talking. It has been fascinating and it has completely absorbed me. And even though I've still beat myself up periodically for not 'doing enough' this year, in reflection I can see real progress. The infrastructure was being built, the steel girders on which I can now apply concrete and glass. And things are again moving along. Networking has started, ideas are percolating and I have the energy to apply myself beyond myself again. I realize, one year out, that a year is such a short time. It is just one season in and of itself. This year was about sowing - and truth be told I think I've got another solid year of sowing ahead of me, not to mention if we have another baby. But all of that energy and seed is going to come to fruition and there will be plenty of time to create.

And even as I type that it cracks me up. Because what have I been doing this year if not create. A little person rose up onto his own two feet because I've been here nurturing him. What better foundation could I have been building this year?