Five Years a Writer

How do you decide when it’s time to stop? When enough is enough? When it’s time to change? Conversely, how do you know that it’s all just fine as it is and that the right thing to do is simply more of the same? I have arrived at a crossroads with this blog. I began it off the side of my desk five years ago; while May 1, 2018 marks the official beginning in my calendar, my staking my claim post was April 15th, my first semi-regular post not until September 30th, and my first public A Post a Day in May series not until the following year on May 1st. Since then, I have found my writing rhythm, my writing voice, and, thanks to you, my readers. When I began the blog, I had a 5-year plan in mind, hence the blog’s name: Five Years a Writer— a five-year-long runway that would see me take off from full-time college teaching to wherever retirement from that would take me. Today, almost two years into retirement and five years after launching the blog, I’m at a decision point: to close up shop

“Are you stupid?” asked the teacher of the student who had been doing the same practice for a very long time. “I didn’t mean for you to do it forever. I meant for you to do it until you needed to move on.” I have been thinking of this story, which a senior yoga teacher told at a workshop I attended a very long time ago. It was told with equanimity, the teacher having been the student to whom that other teacher had been speaking many years earlier. From the vantage point of time and with the wisdom that comes from both distance and experience, the teacher in front of me used the story to illustrate the value of embracing a practice and the importance of knowing when to let it go. For the past five years, I have written “A Post a Day in May” as part of my writing practice. This year, I am ceasing that practice. It has been a terrific experience — putting myself through the grind of a daily deadline to put myself out there with my writing every single day for thirty-one days in a row, re