My year in review:
I bought a house; started going to the Kansas Zen Center in Lawrence, the first Buddhist temple I've been to in at least ten years; did a lot to work through my memory loss, figuring out a lot about times in my life from over fifteen years ago that I had little to no recollection of for most of that time, even saw briefly, though this person turned out to be less than (or maybe about what) I expected on pretty much every front, someone at the KU Counseling Center, who didn't help with the issue or anything I brought to her, except she did help me to focus on my writing for a short while, and I made some significant headway in that area as a result of it; I combatted my anxiety even more; I walked over 3.65 million steps, getting an average of 10,000 a day; I took daily journaling about my life back up again, which I hadn't been doing for over three years, I got inspired to take my flute-playing back up after buying a bamboo flute during my trip to the Renaissance Fair; I've stepped back a little bit from my role I've taken in the Kansas City League of Autistics after four years, and it seems will do a lot of what I used to do for it, which is now going to be Neurodiverse KC, in junction with my job at the KU Center on Disabilities; I've been asked by my good friend and fellow disability rights activist Philip McGruder to continue the leading of the student community he founded at KU many years ago, Believe Autism Matters, which with the help of the KUCD Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Committee, I can do until the group has a more permanent government to allow it to do what it has done for years; I traveled to many places for work, Topeka, Sacrament, Newport, Kentucky, and Cincinnati; I e-mailed my senator and representatives almost every day to ask them to support abortion rights; I've donated to the Texas Equal Access Abortion Fund nearly every week since about the beginning of July; and after doing so much spelling out of messages with letters at Hobby Lobby that are contrary to their ideology for so many years, I finally got banned by corporate from doing it; besides that, I did make the choice to take some toxic people off my Facebook/out of my life, of whom I really should have done that to a long time ago and never even had them there to begin with, but I made new friends and reconnected with some old ones; I also happened to look back at one novella I thought I'd finished, only to find a couple of necessary passages missing and do much needed proofreading on it and other writing projects; and I finished the year strong by selling a bookmark I made from one of my dad's business cards to the wife of one of his former clients; finishing reading a novel and a graphic novel I started as well as the TV show I was watching, getting rid of some last minute dust, making sure all my plastic bag recycling had been taken to the grocery store, cleaning out Muggsie's food cup and scooping his litter box, one last load of laundry, and doing a lot of decluttering of my house and car, and laying the grounds to declutter more in the future.
My goal for next year: write and illustrate my prose and graphic novel stories, building on the momentum I've gained this year and work more in working through my memory loss, reaching out to people who would be able to give me information; read books that I want to read and also may very well help me with my writing; practice my flute; and get my blood pressure down so I can give blood, for various reasons, by going on overnight trips to Missouri and Kansas towns with the friends I've traveled with like I planned to this year, cuddling Muggsie, my cat, spend time with friends, watching some shows and movies, walking a lot, and doing some cooking and crocheting that I had planned to do with the new time I now have, since more Neurodiverse KC stuff will be through work. On the political front, I plan to first, remember what Judy, one of the teachers at the Kansas Zen Center said, not to catastrophize, mentioning how refugees from Laos avoided the Laotian army and Vietnamese boat people avoided pirates by staying calm, and to work to ensure our freedoms are protected through several lines of defense - courts, media, and cities and states - strengthen the defenses autistic and marginalized people have in Lawrence, Kansas, and Missouri through helping Neurodiverse KC and Believe Autism Matters, reach out and cultivate alliances with oppressed groups around the world to help the cause of our democracy and civil rights, continue writing to my legislators, give to abortion funds what I can as I see the need and potential, join protests and events in Lawrence and, if none are there, in Kansas City, and also work to support the businesses in my area that are threatened by tariffs as well as the post office by buying things I will use (juice for my smoothies, snacks for watching TV with, cooking supplies), like postage stamps that I have on and off again maintained a collection of, which includes those that belonged to my great-grandfather to me year ago, and I plan to be there to give morale and strength and provide other support people through the next year of the hooded Oompa-loompa's presidency. Goodbye, 2024.
