It’s the last day of 2008 and I haven’t written anything here in over a week.

The weather forecast tells me that it is currently a balmy 21 degrees in New York City, though this wind chill thing is bringing the temperature down to 4 degrees. Many people have asked if I will be observing the start of the new year in Times Square. No, I shall not. Instead, I shall be running four miles through Central Park. It will be a brisk run! (Pun unapologetically intended.)

My circumstances have changed notably in the past 365 days:

• I completed my residency and began a fellowship.
• I danced lindy hop regularly and no longer do so.
• I ran my first race and unexpectedly (and unintentionally) placed second in my age group in a 5K race.
• I left Seattle and moved to New York City.
• I endured a spate of unremarkable dates and, just when I had prepared myself for lifelong Singleness, The Beau entered my life.
• My hair was dyed a variety of colors (not all at once) and, just last month, is now back to its natural color.
• My friends seem even more scattered across the country now than previously, though I am making connections now in New York.
• I now have a deeper respect for long underwear and snow boots.

My writing muscle has also atrophied over time. Though I write on a daily basis, the prose I primarily produce these days are either consult notes that end up in a medical record or letters I send to friends and family. I feel like any literary skill I previously had has drained out of my fingertips due to the lack of regular writing.

If you don’t use it, you lose it.

Another plausible explanation, though, is the surrounding context. I must confess that I have felt and, unfortunately, continue to feel great disappointment with one specific aspect related to my relocation to New York. Though this is a quiet distress, it is nonetheless a distress. Some people remark that people cannot learn effectively above (or below) a certain threshold of anxiety. I remark that people cannot create effectively above (or below) a similar threshold of anxiety or disappointment. I believe I am currently above that threshold.

But! Circumstances shift and I am confident that my point in that graph of creativity and disappointment shall move within a few months. Change brings stress and stress often reveals talents and strengths we did not previously appreciate. Growth is hardly guaranteed to be a comfortable process. We all deal somehow. Dealing effectively is the challenge.

I have not set any writing goals for myself in 2009, as I have yet to identify a unifying mission behind intueri. Now that “medical narrative” apparently has its own section in bookstores, I’m not sure that my scribblings here add anything that isn’t already proliferating through books, blogs, and other media. The contrarian in me wants to create something different, though I have little idea as to what that may be for now.

Regardless, one year is ending and another one begins. We are all a year older with a year’s worth of experiences now tucked somewhere within the folds of our amazing brains. A new year will bring new discoveries, new meanings, and new adventures; good news, bad news, and everything in between. We will try, we will fail, and we will succeed.

Happy new year to you and yours.