How do you measure success when money is not your forté? Numbers overwhelm me. My fourth grader cruises about YouTube looking for videos on binary code, pi, and the fourth dimension. He does this for FUN at age nine, gets excited, and tries to share his newfound knowledge. When he speaks, I hear, “Ooglety bogfogf ones fndi zeroes ovoeicwi xmy diameter. Do you know what a hexadecimal system is?” No idea. For the life of me I cannot remember his height or weight. I only know that I cannot carry him anymore and that when he hugs me standing up, my chin is in his hair.

Like a lot of artists, I’m a little short on financial savvy. As a new divorcee I am all too aware that as a person without a job, I am completely dependent on the alimony my ex-husband provides. The situation is humbling—on dark days, humiliating. After nine unsuccessful months of applying for graphic design jobs, I shifted to plan B to find work as an illustrator. I figure if I’m going to spin my wheels, I may as well spin them in the direction I want to go. The clock is ticking as I struggle to establish a business before the spousal support ends.

In March I complete my first year of being an officially middle-aged person. Because I spend enough time flailing about in uncertainty, I am dedicating this post to the idea of Success. I asked friends, “How do you measure success in your life?” The most common response boiled down to “Happiness.” My friends are largely artists like myself—visual artists, dancers, musicians, film-makers. Those of us who haven’t been ground down by the pragmatics of earning a living, are still clawing our way towards professional recognition. Most artists aren’t rich, but life feels rich. While I feel shaky these days, I marvel that I am exactly who I want to be. How is that?

Planted a Himmayudin mango tree

Happy New Year! Time always moves faster the older we get. One day I’ll lose my mind and hopefully these journal entries will jog my memory. Although less than 20% of my life is discussed in my writing, I hope it’ll be enough to jolt the other 80% alive if I forget. If not, the thousands of pictures I take every year will.

2013 started full of promise and ended way better than expected. I was looking for a conservative 9% increase in the S&P 500 to 1,551 after a 13% year in 2012 and we closed up 30%! I became more bullish after my target was achieved in the first four months of the year and positioned more aggressively, but not enough unfortunately. It’s fun to keep predictions set all year so we can look back and see how we were feeling back then.

One of my biggest challenges all year was maintaining focus. It’s way too easy to sleep in every day, binge watch shows on Netflix, stuff my face with donuts, travel for weeks on end, and have days blur together with so much free time now that I no longer have a day job. As a result, I set one year, three year, and five year business revenue goals to minimize the amount of meandering. So far, so good. But to be quite frank I’m losing my desire to make more money. I just don’t care anymore, which is part of the reason why I left Wall St. I just want to feel useful.