Boy, am I glad to see you guys after all this time. I know some of you are also on the newsletter mailing list, so you would have heard from me back in the Autumn with news about the completion of the Space Between series (yay!). I did some book giveaways and then announced the publication October 11 of the third and final book, Across the Worlds (which I’m so pleased with!). But this, finally, is personal: a blog post, my first one since December 2020. Yikes. First, how is everybody? Are you navigating your way to the far side of the pandemic (what I want to believe is the far side, anyway)? If so, I hope you managed it by carrying on much as usual, or perhaps by employing certain techniques to help you, like humorous distractions, exercise, cooking and avoiding the news. Unfortunately, though, I know that many others have had health struggles and losses to focus the mind. Other than writing and cooking—because I enjoy it and we do have to eat, after all—I mostly just dug a hole and crawled in it for three years, and I know at least some of you did the same thing. But here we are at the start of yet another new year. And I don’t know about you, but I’d like a fresh beginning for this one, a better outlook. Instead of anxiously doomscrolling and agonizing about all the things I can do nothing about—like war, toxic spills, melting glaciers and multiple UFOs gamboling their way through the civil aviation airways—I want to recover the airheaded optimism I used to be full of (one of many things I was full of). I want to stay in better touch with the people I care about. I want to remember to be grateful each day (without forcing myself to keep a gratitude journal, which, realistically, stands no chance of happening). I want to write poetry again (four poems in February already. They’re only so-so, but hey, they’re on paper!). I want to try to stay in the present instead of projecting my anxious what-ifs on the future (this one’s probably dead in the water). And in April, I will make a good start on a new book. That one’s nonnegotiable. I’ve written before that I don’t really make New Year’s resolutions anymore. And that’s not what this is about. I just want to worry less and recover my sense of humor. (I did make a genuine resolution this year, though, one that I’ll write about in a future post.) So what about you? What do you hope to put behind you, what to welcome for 2023? Personally, I want to learn to welcome every sunset, no matter the season, no matter the length of the night that follows. Better to appreciate the sunset than to curse the darkness.