A few years ago, as many of you know, my world fell apart, I was caught in a bunch of raging storms, many of my own making, some a surprise. It seemed that the recession struck, I got divorced, I fell apart,  and publishing as I knew it vanished all on the same day. In various ways, this happened to many people in the world in that strange and dark year, I have experienced nothing many other people have not experienced.  In some ways, our world seemed a darker place after that year, but that inspired me to begin looking for the color and light in our world, and I found it, through Maria, my photography, my books and my blog.

Since then, my life has been a joy and a struggle, one alternating with the other. I have worked hard to balance my life, restore it to some sense of order. I found love and this transformed the darkness into light, the most precious thing.

I am learning that his year will be another challenging year, and it has kept me up nights so I have to be open about it, that is my signal to be authentic. The blog seems to sustain me, guide me, as does my wife, my partner. I am moving to a different phase of life, I will have to deal with money this year, I will have to pay a lot of taxes this year, I will have a lot of new expenses this year, my creative life will evolve this year.  I ought to save some of what they call retirement money away, that has not been possible since all of the trouble.

I suspect my publishing life will change yet again this year.  Since those dark days in 2008, I have been awash in change, and it often makes me dizzy and tired just to think about it. I have just finished the final book on my Random House contract and for the first time in my life as a writer, I am not sure where my next book will go or who might publish it. In the next weeks Random House and I – the only publisher I have ever had – will decided whether we stay together or separate. Either way, I am grateful for them for publishing so many of my books, I have been so lucky.

Money always has frightened and challenged me, this has been true my entire life, I have never quite gotten comfortable with it. I need to think about it this year, as do so many of the people reading this. I am not alone with it anymore, I have Maria to help me, she is sensible, wise and strong. I am so used to being alone, I sometimes forget than I am not, and that makes a world of difference.  I see this year as another creative challenge in my life and that is what my life is about.

A friend told me about his divorce, and he said he realized it was time he took responsibility for his life, and this is what I realized five or six years ago, before I fell in love with Maria. We knew when we got together that we were giving up a lot of security, savings, the things people in America are told they must live for, we decided we would not live for that, I would not trade these years for all the money in the world.

When my world collapsed, I promised myself that I would never again live a loveless life, I would look for love, and I found it across the street in one of my own barns. A miracle. I promised myself a creative life, and I – we – have kept that promise. Now I must also face some of the realities of the world and live a balanced and grounded life. It is frightening to me, I am not sure I know how to do it, I am not sure I am good enough to do it, young enough to do it. That is the spiritual challenge, I think, to find the strength in me, the light in me, and unleash my faith and my promise. That is as exciting as it is sometimes terrifying. I mean to earn my way, pay my way, create my way. Just watch me do it, I tell myself, what a show it will be, a blaze of words, ideas, color and light.

This is the life I chose and I will take responsibility for it. I don’t think I was destined for peaceful years without challenge, I have never planned for it or valued it. I chose – we chose a creative life. For me, writing and the blog have always been a grounding experience, a way of being open, of facing my life and the world outside of it, the blog tells me where I want to go and puts it  on the table where I can’t run or hide from it. This is the life I chose, and I will honor it and take responsibility for it.

Life is filled with crisis and mystery and challenge, the test for me is not whether I have a perfect life or an easy one, but the grace and courage I can find within me to live it honorably, compassionately and well.

And with love, always with love.