I did it! I survived the year, and managed to write a diary entry for every single day in 2017! Colour me happy πŸ™‚

If you’ve been keeping up to date here, then there’s little for me to add at this point. On the personal front I survived the end of my marriage and, instead of my live caving in, I found light at the end of that particular tunnel. Life is new, and different, and okay. Most importantly, the Kinderbesten are ok. It’s been a challenging year for the Elderbeast in particular, and while he’s not yet where he needs to be, I’m celebrating all the forward steps he’s taken since this time last year. Meanwhile, the Kinderbeast effectively taught himself to read this year (with help from his teachers and Reading Eggs), which has broadened his world a fair bit.

Writing these diary entries has been an important part of the year for me. I vowed to write a post each day for the whole year, but it was about more than just meeting that goal. I started this project because I had a compelling sense that I should document this year. In the end, being able to offload my thoughts onto these pages has probably been one of the things that helped me get through the last twelve months. However, in any year, being able to sit down and reflect on your day is an important tool: it enables you to apply a perspective to things, and it forces you to process your thoughts (in much the same way that simply talking, and having to organise and verbalise your thoughts, is an important component of therapy).

So the big question is obviously: am I going to continue this next year? Well, the answer is both yes and no. I’d love to carry on as I have been, but the truth is that this project has been a burden as well as a benefit. It takes some significant chunks of time each week to get these posts written and I’ve constantly been at least a week, often more, behind. As rewarding as this project has been, I don’t like having things hanging over me. Consequently, much of the year has had a spectre of ‘must catch up with those blog posts’ lurking over my shoulder. On the other hand, I have genuinely enjoyed writing these posts and knowing that (a small handful of) people are interested enough to keep reading them.

So, I have a compromise.

For 2018 I’m going to attempt a weekly diary post. This should give the benefits of reflecting briefly on each day, while sparing the excruciating details. It may also free me up to writing some blog posts on other topics over the year (such as writing). The fact that the year starts on a Monday makes this even more appealing to my sense of organisation.

As they say: watch this space …