I Don’t Write Year-Ends Letters

I do not write year-end letters. Yes, I receive them. I read them and smile. I send off a quick email to let the sender know that I’ve seen and appreciated their words. But I am never the sender.

If I were to write a year-end letter, I suppose I would have a lot to say about this year. I might comment on all the big plans that were brewing in my mind and how it took me months to finally bite the bullet and act on them. I would start with a mention of my trip to California, which included my first American train ride (and three more to boot), a journey across the country and days spent connecting with family members and touring a state I had never before visited.

But I do not write year-end letters.

Still, I cannot help but think that if I did, if I did, I would mention the many smaller trips within the state and without. The overnights to see concerts and movies, share laughter with friends and family and visit museums, cemeteries, and zoos. I might comment on lamentations over dessert and on walks with friends and family members who shared my same frustration at the current political climate.

Remember, I am not the type of person to write a year-end letter.

Though were I to consider such a feat, I would be remiss to mention another trip: one to view the full eclipse, a trip for which I was so excited but woefully unprepared. Yet, somehow, it still happened, and while I spent my time with viewing the solar eclipse with different company than I imagined, I was still fraught with excitement and managed to shed a tear.

You will recall that I will never write a year-end letter, of course.

Perhaps, had I such an inclination to write a letter, I might mention the joy that I experienced walking many miles, playing various games, listening to multiple podcasts, researching myriad topics, and reading more books than in any single of the previous 31 years of my life. I could recount the countless meals partaken or discuss new friends made, memories shared, and weddings participated in.

This is not a year-end letter, you will notice, but those are the types of things I would write in one.

If I sat down to type a year-end letter to mail to my loved ones, I would undoubtedly find myself struggling not to mention the difficulties that the year had lobbed in my direction, namely the passing of a dear friend and an injury that plagued me for much of the year in an attempt to further keep me down. Both succeeded, for a short while. I might pontificate on the ensuing struggles, you know, if I was doing that sort of thing.

A year-end letter from me would also have to include mention of the story that I had published at the Radvocate as I ramped up efforts to write more and publish. I might also have mentioned how I toiled (okay, perhaps not toiled) on my novel, wrote other stories (one of which took me most of a year to title), brainstormed a graphic novel, and began to plan a more serious future as a writer.

The type of writer who doesn’t pen end-of-year letters, you see.

This isn’t a year-end letter, no matter what you might think. I don’t know what the hell it is. But it’s certainly not the type of letter you write at the end of the year to recap the previous twelve months.

I wouldn’t do that.