Greg Tremblay / Greg Boudreaux Audiobook Narrator

2018.

A new year (on some calendars) and another trip around the sun, marked by the relentless waxing and waning of the seasons, the moon, events and families. New lives are born. Some flicker out. Relationships spark and burn, dwindle and cool.

It isn’t out of the realm of reasonable to say that each and every one of us is the center of the universe… from our perspective. We are the point from which we observe outward the everything around us.

We are also, each of us, the only fixed moment in time. The NOW. The definition of past and present; we don’t move through the year, the year scrolls past us. Yet, we change. We grow up, grow old, grow in our crafts and in our arts and our sciences.

I took a rare moment this past week to stop working, wipe my metaphorical brow, and look around at the grandeur that is my life at present.

In a word? Humbling.

I am 40 years old. I am in close to the best shape of my life right now, working out regularly for my health and my happiness. My family is, despite their own hurdles, content and growing in spirit and health. I work, from my cozy home studio every day, narrating stories for the world.

In 2017 I recorded 61 individual books, totaling over 456 hours of audio, or just shy of 4.5 MILLION words.

In 2017 I traveled. To Simpson Bay Sint Maarten, Orlando Florida, Atlanta Georgia, Berlin Germany, Boothbay Maine. To Charlotte North Carolina, Denver Colorado, and San Antonio Texas.

I had hard moments in 2017 too. I had depression and anxiety try to eat my soul from the corners. I had fear and self-doubt, jealousy and envy, anger and cynicism.

I also said goodbye to things and people in 2017. Deaths of author and friends. Ends of relationships and loves. The end of my child’s true child-hood and her becoming a teen. The end of my 30s. The change in leadership in a country I love in a way I didn’t then, and do not now, enjoy.

That’s part of it as well.

I think it’s useful for us as people to use the New Year as a mental demarcation line, to make a moment where we pack away things behind us and move on. We don’t really leave them behind very well, I mean let’s face it – we’re shit at letting go of things. But we try. We resolve to try. Even if we fail, resolving to try is key to reminding ourselves that we have hope.

I resolve to continue.

To continue my art, To continue to believe and have faith that things will happen. I will work in good spirit, and know that both the good and the bad will come.

I will continue to be healthy, not to be something for others but to be the best ME I can be.

I will continue to love, to laugh, to give and to enjoy.

(… and I will try to establish a SLIGHTLY better work/life balance… I drifted a bit there last fall and into the winter. Don’t get me wrong, I love the books, but that might have been 8 too many.)

For you? Know that I genuinely and intensely wish that the coming year brings you joy. Good challenges. A sense of self, and fulfillment. Health, and opportunity. Good things to balance the unavoidable bad.

I encourage you to resolve to continue. Continue to share, continue to give. Continue to accept help when you need it.

Keep reading, keep writing. Keep listening.

Keep sharing your story.

Love, Bisous, and cheers for the New Year!

-G