It’s not that the keyboard feels foreign beneath my fingers; they simply haven’t had the opportunity to wander across the letters for quite some time.

With 2026 now a current reality, I’m coming off a self-imposed year away from writing. As exciting for me as it is, it is also overwhelming.

I made the decision in 2024 to allow myself a sabbatical of sorts. Then on the cusp of a move back to a city where I have spent most of my adult life, with eye surgeries scheduled and a recovery process I was unsure about, and a soon-to-be new home which would require all sorts of renovations or redecorating, I sensed 2025 would not allow the time (or mind-set) to continue with a practice that has been a part of me for as long as I can remember.

I was one who took my ‘write every damn day’ motto to heart, and 2025 was to be my gap year.

To keep this website running last year, I posted daily entries from the previous decade. A review of sorts, each essay and poem, or point of view reminded me of my commitment to my written words. While I did maintain a journal (a habit that goes back even longer than this website) through 2025, it wasn’t with the persistence I usually exhibited. Even my personal letter writing was less than sporadic and, up until a couple of days ago, I hadn’t written a poem in well over a year.

So, now, it’s time. It is, after all 2026. For the past several days, I’ve been trying to get back into action. I’m not struggling, but it does take a while to get back into the habit. 

There is so much to catch up on. I’ve got a notebook full of ideas, or concepts, and a couple of scattered stanzas that will (or should) find a place in a poem. I’ve also got a couple of manuscripts that need to see the light of day; they are incomplete and deserve attention. 

I’ve got a lot of stuff in various stages of undress, and it is time to take them through to completion. That is my intention.

This is the year to devote my attention to my intentions. This is the year to finish what I have started.

© 2026 j.g. lewis