In 2015:

• My child continues to grow and dazzle me.
• More and more frequently I find myself stealing socks from my son’s drawer when my own sock drawer is filled with socks with holes in them.
• My husband and I lament how x or y in our house or our cars needs fixing, replacing, repairing.
• We sit by the fire as a family and feel grateful for all that we have.
• Our dog chews up something that he shouldn’t. We gently scold him but then laugh when he can’t see us because he’s funny.
• Someone visiting for the first time gets locked in the guest bathroom because we forgot to tell them about the troublesome latch.
• My third book, THE BOOK OF LANEY, is published.
• Some people read this book and like it and tell me why and I am grateful.
• At least one person takes it upon her/himself to hate this book after reading three pages and then write a scathingly ambiguous (because didn’t read the whole thing) review of the book on Goodreads.
• I feel horrible about this review for far longer than I should completely giving it more power than all of the nice things that people say.
• I come to my senses because fuck that person.
• I feel good!
• I feel bad again.
• I feel good!
• I move on.
• I write something that pleases me.
• I wake up feeling well-rested.
• I read what I wrote again after a few months and I hate it.
• I revise.
• A few weeks later, I read the revised piece and am pleased again.
• The next day I read it again and hate it.
• I suffer several hours of crippling self doubt. I get on the elliptical and watch The Good Wife. One of Alicia’s clients has worse problems than I do and so I am uplifted, once again, by the magic of television.
• My child loses another tooth and inches into the next stage of his childhood.
• There is horrible news of injustice and suffering. I am filled with impotent rage.
• Someone sends me an irritating email and I fume over it.
• Something beautiful happens.
• I wake up and wish I could stay in bed.
• I cry.
• At bed time, I lie beside my son in the dark and tell him a story about a star that wanted to be a boy and a boy who wanted to be a star.
• The love that I didn’t think could grow any larger, grows.
• The time between winter and summer and summer and winter continues to shrink.
• We wake up breathing.

* I’ve been previewing my coming year for the past few years but, inevitably, someone reading it doesn’t get it and thinks I’m reviewing my year. This is the year I decided to add an asterisk so that maybe those who think I’m reviewing will notice the asterisk and read this note. Anyway, if you’ve made it to this point, welcome!