There is something so lovely about short long-term goals.

Yes, short. long. term.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the summer of 2020, which will mark 20 years since I graduated high school, and what I want to be true of my life by that time. Two years feels like the perfect amount of time: enough time to make a serious dent in things, but imminent enough to start right now.

I’ve lost a lot of confidence this year. I haven’t been writing, and I find myself scared to even open my manuscript. That’s a long fall from 2015, when my debut novel came out, but it feels like a million things have happened since then to chip away at my confidence. If it was once a sculpture, it is now dust. Too much has happened.

But I also know that confidence is not a stagnant thing. For me, it has ebbed and flowed like the tide. I still am a great speaker, I am creative, thoughtful, and smart. I love stories and believe in their power.

Concrete is made of three things: water, aggregate, and cement.

I have my gravel: the past.

I have water: the future.

And I have cement, the glue that will bind it all together: an abiding love for story and a calling to write.

Slowly I will rebuild.

2020, I am coming for you.