In keeping with my annual tradition (2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008), this Samhain Eve I’m reflecting on everything that’s happened this year.

In 2015, my DDR bottleneck became stamina instead of accuracy, and it started to feel more like exercise and less like fun. On the up side, I can now play Crypt of the NecroDancer on my dance pad, and that’s fun. My favorite single-player video game was Hack ‘n’ Slash, because hacking the world felt like being a real-life mage, grokking the underlying substructure of reality in such fullness that manipulating it becomes trivial. Our favorite video game we played together was Broken Age. My favorite speedrun was the Tetris block at SGDQ. My favorite non-fiction book was Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, and my favorite fiction book was Agent to the Stars, by John Scalzi.

Our word of the year for 2015 was “pantry”. We wanted to make some things better that would stay better once they were done. In particular:

• getting a good wheelchair for Kyeli
• getting medical care and pain management for Kyeli
• moving to a wheelchair-accessible home
• making my business consistent and sustainable

Let’s see how we did!

In January, I took Charlie Gilkey‘s advice and stopped teaching the nuts and bolts of business so I could focus on teaching Pathfinding. Kelly visited Portland for KellyCon 2.5. I taught Peaceful Productivity, and we tried to find a new place to live in Portland, and failed miserably and repeatedly, mainly due to lack of accessibility.

In February, We finally found a new place to live: the HMS Skywhale. We moved in with high hopes which were very quickly dashed. Kyeli got a fancy new wheelchair – Chariot 2.0 – which didn’t fit. The fitting fiasco began.

In March, I created a new autoresponder sequence for my eZine, and did 37 Pathfinding Consultations.

In April, I released Find Your Path Now, an eBook that serves as a great introduction to my work. We began a long-distance roleplaying campaign with our son Dru over Skype. The 2nd annual Trailblazers group formed and began trailblazing. (It’s the secret sequel to the Pathfinding Program.)

In May, Aine invited me to be part of the Guennea Pig project. I accepted. Kyeli started seeing Danielle Cornelius for physical and woo-woo healing, and we both started seeing Myra Sicilia for emotional work. They are both totally awesome! Kyeli finally resolved the situation with Chariot 2.0 (two scathing Yelp reviews were involved) and instead, she got a mid-line Karma wheelchair – Chariot 3.0 – that works pretty well. Also, I finally paid off my student loan!

In June, we took that student loan payment and redirected it to Dru to help put him through college. (Dru is in college now!) I wrote and submitted 22 guest posts; this one was my favorite. I had a great coaching session with Andrea J. Lee. Julica visited Portland for JulicaCon 1, which set the wheels of transformation in motion. And most notably, We decided to move to Beacon, NY and move in with Kelly.

In July, Kelly visited Portland for KellyCon 3, and she graphic recorded our App Camp for Girls presentation “From Trolls to LOLs”! We launched our new podcast, Wild Crazy Meaningful Enneagram, which quickly skyrocketed to become the #1 Enneagram podcast out there!

In August, I taught Overcome Overwhelm (O_o), and we presented our hopefully-not-last App Camp for Girls presentation. We said our goodbyes to all our Portland and Seattle friends, especially spending lots of high-quality time with Jean. We went through our Great Purge 3.0, getting rid of all our furniture and lots of our other stuff too, so that we could fit almost everything we own into our Honda Fit for our upcoming cross-country move.

In September, we moved across the country! We went to Yellowstone, smuggled our cat into a mall, visited Julica, accidentally put our lives on hold, and visited some friends! During the road trip, Kyeli asked for help building a ramp for our new home, and y’all met her goal and then some. Thank you so much!

In October, we arrived in Beacon and began settling in with our BFF and new roomie Kelly. I began attending zikr (Sufi group spiritual practice) every Thursday in New York City, where my order is headquartered. It’s a 2.5-hour trip each way, but it’s totally worth it. We also went to NYC to see Caitlin Doughty. Kelly’s cat Wolfie died. And thanks to the inner work I did in the Guennea Pig Project and in therapy, I accepted a part-time position at my once and future day job with little to no emotional drama.

In summary, 2015 pretty much sucked. We expected it to be productively rough, because we had chosen to build lots of pantries even though we were exhausted, but our pantries kept falling apart… so it was gratuitously, discouragingly rough instead. I think we were Path-creating instead of Pathfinding.

But in October, things finally started looking up. All the inner work I did in 2015 piled up bit by bit, and in October it finally reached the tipping point. When I tipped, I disidentified from the “rebel” persona that I had called “me” for the past seven years. I feel like I’ve just begun the third phase of my life.

The Three Phases of Pace’s Life

1977-2007:	My life goal is the usual one: money, success, prestige.
2008-2015:	My life goal is the opposite of that: wild, crazy, meaningful no matter what the cost!
2016-????:	I don’t know, but whatever it is, it transcends and includes both of the above.

Dearest 2016,

I have no idea what you will bring. But I will work with you instead of against you. I will work with myself instead of against myself; no more playing on hard mode.

Tervetuloa!

Photos by Kyeli Smith