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One of my lessons for this year is to learn how to play as hard as I work, or at least play more. The point is to enjoy what I have, what I’ve accomplished, and sometimes I forget that. I make everything a burden instead of a gift. I was raised to think everything was potentially bad. If someone was nice to you, they wanted something. If you were in love, then you’d lose that person eventually. My grandmother was a profoundly unhappy person. I’m not sure she truly enjoyed much of anything. Even when she was happy she was worried about the happiness slipping away, so she made it less happy, as if by ruining it herself it would last longer. She never seemed to realize, and it took me years to see it, that the very act of taking the shine off the joy, made it less joy and more worry.

I have a list of things to do. Most of them are small, but I fell back into that years long habit of making it all burdens. But its not. I have to decide some things about the Anita Blake comic, but I have both the chance and the ability to make those decisions. That is a gift. I am about to fly to Paris with my husband, Jonathon, and our good friend and assistant, Carri. It will be our first trip there for Jonathon and myself; the second for Carri. But we are flying to Paris and doing signings there, and interviews, and having a few days to simply see France. What a wonderful gift. I have the resources to shop for nice clothes, and I’ve worked out at the gym so that a size 8 fits me just dandy. My ankle, which I injured a couple of years ago, is well enough that I can do 50 minutes on the treadmill. I can actually wear a few shoes that are not boots that tie over the ankle. This is a wonderful thing. I get to clean my office and organize it before I set down to seriously work on the next book. It is true that I’m not going to have as much down time between books as I thought I would, but still it’s not the breakneck pace that I did the last four books in; that schedule no one could keep and stay sane. Not even me. See there I go, negative. Damn it. Let’s try that again. I am going to have to go back to work sooner than my muse and I had planned, that is certainly true. Positive spin would be? I have two New York Times Best Selling series in a time when most writers are truly struggling, hell, most everyone is struggling. I was offered enough money to make agreeing to the schedule worth it to me, that’s a very good thing. Okay, this isn’t working. I am tired. I am well and truly tired, but then so is everyone. My mother worked every day of my childhood in a factory. She hated it, but it put food on the table and a roof over our heads. She died when I was six, but I remember thinking three things about her: she was beautiful, she didn’t smile much, and she seemed sad and tired. My daughter, Trinity, said this morning, “I think I’m here sometimes to make you smile.” Which made me smile, and then I remembered me as a child trying to make my own mother smile more. I don’t want my kid to feel that buoying my spirits is her job. I need to buoy my own spirits.

I have worked very hard in meditation, my path of faith, to learn to lighten up, and to play. I let myself slip back into old habits which consist of sorrow and guilt and beating myself up about nothing. It is a habit that steals my joy in everything. It is my grandmother’s legacy. My mother never escaped it, but I did. I am. I know why some of this is happening. My grandmother’s birthday is this month. Call it an anniversary depression, if you will, but damn it, nothing is wrong. My life is very good, very happy, and I’ve worked hard that it is so. I pulled a rune this morning, as in a Norse rune. It was Thurisaz. One of it’s meanings is doorway, or gateway. Part of the advice from meditating on the rune was this, “Think it all over and get free from your ghosts. And cross the border.” The idea is if I let go of the ghosts, then I can go through the door to a new, happier, healthier place. Good advice, and very needed today.

I will let go of this ghost that came up yesterday to steal my joy, and I will let go of those false lessons from my past. I will embrace my joy. I will play. I will probably put a sticky note above my computer with just that word on it, “Play” and maybe another with this on it, “It’s all a gift.” I often use visual cues on lessons that I’m trying to learn. Play, I need to play more, and I need to let myself see that it’s all a gift, and that even the hardest lessons can eventually lead some place wonderful.