The Span of Years

As the year is coming to a close, I've been thinking back over the years I've been sending these letters to you - how they've changed, how I've changed, how you've probably changed, too. :)

I'm grateful for moments like these, lulls in the relentless march of life to trace the dots, then to now.

Six years ago, I was stepping off a plane in Thailand, eyes wide, unsure.

Four years ago, I was in Japan, about to embark for what I thought would be a quick van-based adventure around New Zealand. The startup I was working for had gone bust that June, and I'd gone all in on making a living at Ink and Feet, full-time.

And then - well, if you're like most folks who get these letters, you've been reading through all the rest. A first date and then an I'm staying. A wedding. Finding my way in a new nation, a new life that blindsided the planning part of me so completely that I still laugh about it.

Finding my way back to travel, to words.

And four years later and a half-dozen paths tried, back where I started: trying to figure out how to combine making a living and making a meaningful life.

It's funny - once again, I find myself in December, worn threadbare by making, ready to put a heart-felt thing into the world - and even more ready for some genuine rest and recuperation. That course I've been working on will launch next week, and this time, there won't be a big fanfare of it.

Maybe that's growth. Bien dans sa peau - feeling comfortable in my own skin more important to me now than ever.

I look forward and wonder how future me, four years in the making, will look back at this version of me, younger, more naïve. Who I'll be then, who you'll be, and if we'll still get to share a bit of our Sundays together.

Honestly, I kinda hope so.

Here's to the days turned into months turned into lines on our skin. The spin and tilt of this planet. Time, making each moment count.

See you next week,

-Steven

p.s. The best thing I saw all week was this stunning and well-done mea culpa from the masthead of one of New Zealand's largest publications for perpetuating racism for 160 years. Progress.