A Letter from Danielle for January ’16
Hi Everyone,
Happy New Year!
Whether they were wonderful and just what we hoped, or fell short in some way, I suspect we’re all grateful to have made it through the holidays. On the heels of Thanksgiving, December packs a real punch: Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Our budgets stretched to buy gifts for those we love, our time stretched even thinner to get everything done, our hopes raised and sometimes deflated with holidays not quite the way we wanted them, and the pressure of New Year’s Eve to have fun, the right date, the right plans, the right dress for the occasion, the right friends. Whew….. by New Year’s Day, the men are happy to settle back and watch football on TV, while many women heave a sigh of relief that we made it through the challenge of an ultra busy month.
On New Year’s Day we can look ahead at the new year in front of us. New beginnings, and a clean slate – what can be better? And with dreary weather in most places, it’s a good month to hibernate, get some projects done, stay home more, and take stock.
There is something incredibly exciting about new beginnings, and a new year ahead. We get to start all over. We promise ourselves we’ll pursue new relationships, new jobs, even some new friends. Whatever we’ve left undone or unfinished last year, we’ll put on the front burner instead of the back burner. Paint the living room, get a new couch, join a club, take a class, take that trip we keep saying we’ll take and never have, learn a new language. The possibilities are endless with a new year facing us like a blank page. What will we write on it? What will we do? It’s exciting to think about, and then do something about it.
I don’t make New Year resolutions. As I’ve told you every year, I don’t want to disappoint myself. But I do a lot of thinking about what I want to do in the coming year, and how I want to steer my life, and what I want to get done. And there are always unexpected opportunities that fall out of the sky.
This is a VERY exciting year for me, with 6 new books being published throughout 2016. The first one, BLUE, will be published in hardcover on January 19th. It’s a very meaningful book because it is about two people who have lost hope. One has lost her family in a car accident a few years before, when her husband and three year-old son died. Since then, she has become a human rights worker, dedicated to helping people around the globe who are in dire situations, and giving up her personal life for them. The other main character in the book is a 13 year-old boy named “Blue” (because he has brilliant blue eyes.) He is homeless, living on the streets, with no family to speak of, and little hope of finding his way out of the maze in which he seems to be trapped.
When the two meet at the beginning of the book, right before Christmas, both are at low ebb in their lives, and each impacts the other in powerful positive ways. They change each other’s lives in ways they never could have expected. One chance meeting between a woman who has lost so much and a homeless boy changes everything in their lives forever, as each gives the other hope in unexpected ways. It’s a book about facing loss and finding hope when you least expect it. We never know when things will turn around, no matter how dark they seem. It’s about fighting for a better life, and facing the ghosts and demons of the past. It was a powerful, meaningful book to write, and I hope it means as much to you as it does to me.
So maybe our message this January, on a brand new New Year’s day, is to face the new year with hope and courage, and to expect good things out of 2016. I wish you a fantastic new year, and that all your dreams come true – even the dreams you didn’t know you had. Happy New Year!!
Love,
Danielle