A New Year and New Beginnings

I’m not one to make New Year’s resolutions, or even stay up to midnight, for that matter. Last night, I stayed up watching Beetle Juice and drinking some Beaujolais Nouveau, but only made it to about 10:30 before I called it a night. Still, this year is a little different. At the end of this week, I will work my last day as a full-time employee at the job I have worked for the last fifteen years.

On January sixth, my creative life begins. I will be taking some time off, to catch up on chores around the house, to rest my body, to strategize about the coming year. I will make a pilgrimage to the west coast to visit family and friends and explore the Pacific Northwest in a way I haven’t before. And then I will start my new life as a photographer in ernest.

I am hoping to use my professional work to fuel more personal projects, and I am hoping to get some real, quality time to work on my Portrait Project, started over a year ago.

I have some concrete goals for the new year, but I wouldn’t call them resolutions as much as aspirations. It is exhilarating and terrifying looking forward to this new, creative life. It is pregnant with promise and pitfalls. But succeed or fail, I must know how far I can go with this, and where.

I am grateful for all the affirmation I have received already, and move forward emboldened, though trembling.

I hope you all will follow me on this new journey, and–if I succeed–it might inspire you to follow your own heart.