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January 14, 2020: Moving Forward, Moving Backwards

For the longest time I bemoaned the fact that I wasn’t moving forwards fast enough. What I didn’t realize was that, yes, I was moving forwards, and at a pretty good clip. I realize this now because I’m now moving backwards and finishing up that which I didn’t finish in moving forwards. I now know that it is possible to move forward too fast.

This is going to be the year of moving backwards, so that I might again move forwards. Examples abound. I am going to audit the WEMT class, and in the spring, again take the practical exam. I worked hard hoping to do well. I thought I was moving forward. Now I’ll move backwards and cover some of the same ground, this time perhaps more thoroughly.


Alys headed to clean the goat pen


My Centered Riding training is another case in point. I’m going to do two update clinics this coming year, and perhaps get my Level II certification. I failed to convince Centered Riding clinicians that I was Level II material in the past, so here I go again.

I am not sure I will be able to rise to the challenge, but I’d like to get my Bones for Life certification this year. We’ll see.

And there’s the book, If Wishes were Horses. I set it aside because I didn’t believe it was quite good enough for publication. It was roundly rejected by several agents and publishers. My thinking was that they know something I do not.

Key to all this may be the fact that in the past I worked too hard. In other words, my intensity of focus was a detriment rather than an asset. This time around, I am going to relax and do a better job of taking things in stride.

I have to be careful in orchestrating the Bright Lights Book Project that I don’t again do the same thing. I could easily, in working in a concentrated and intense fashion, again fall down the same rabbit hole.

It’s often been speculated, what’s in a name? My name is Alys and I’m named after a book character, one who herself fell down a rabbit hole. This isn’t someplace that I want to go. There’s no future in it.

So, today, I made a distribution list. And tomorrow, I’ll make calls with the intention of getting the upstairs books out the front door. This, as opposed to running them downstairs and then running them back upstairs when I find places that will take them. And if I don’t get hits (this is what I call affirmative responses to my offer for books), I will do as Pete suggested, and simply take the books out the back door, load up the car, and in this way get them to their final destination.

I wonder if what I’m writing here makes sense to anyone. I wonder if anyone is even reading what I’m writing. For sure, Pete is, so I have at least one reader. For this I am thankful.

There is a middle ground between moving forwards and moving backwards. I hope someday to find it. The search is on. Maybe this is my life’s purpose this time around.

Next: 15. 1/15/20: The Articles of Impeachment

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