2019’s been a pretty crazy year, am I right?  For probably more reasons than I could ever elucidate here, it’s been 365 days of ups, downs, and unexpected plot twists.  While I’m not one to look back with regrets, I do have a tendency to reflect upon the past with a view toward understanding root causes and, if possible, to avoid making the same mistakes in the future.  To a certain degree, that’s why I study history as well.

For me, the year saw a move from the center of Tokyo to its outskirts.  A move that should have been fairly straight-forward yet turned out to be the most painful and destructive I’ve ever made.  Never saw that coming.  At the same time, with that move my life changed gears in a significant way and, while I certainly have more free time available in the evenings than my previous assignment, the remaining hours of the day have become utterly insane!  In both moves, the one physical, the other psychological, there are lessons to be learned, and I intend to spend some of my coming vacation doing just that, in order to make 2020 even better for me, my family, and my office.

As well, this year—this month, really—saw the publication of my second novel, Q.Fulvius: Debt of Dishonor, culminating a two-year effort to turn a short story into a fully-developed novel.  You wouldn’t believe the amount of time spent researching Republican Roman legal practice!  That it was my first real step into the historical fiction genre made it significant for me, as I tick off another step toward writing full-time following retirement from the military.  And the successful invasion of gray hair across my head makes clear that day is coming soon!  Still, I’m thrilled with the final product and am seriously considering a sequel around the despicably lovable main character, Fulvius.

On the other hand—to balance out the news of my latest book release—Army lost to Navy in the annual football grudge match last weekend … and lost in grand style!  The performance put on by Navy’s quarterback Malcolm Perry was nothing short of phenomenal … and I sincerely hope that young Midshipman graduates on time next summer!!  Once was enough, I neither need nor want to see such a display again.  At least not on the “other” side of the line of scrimmage!

For my wife, this year has seen her make a transition from working full-time to preparing for graduate school, a longtime goal.  I’ve no doubt she’ll excel in that regard as she does in everything she attempts.  As well, she took it upon herself to begin overseeing my writing “logistics” in a way that turned out to be most helpful … even if my initial response to that oversight was “No, I think the old website looks just fine, dear.”  Yeah … hate to admit it, but she was right … again. <sigh>

Reading history is an awful lot like looking back over the successes and failures of one’s own life, a long-play version of the year-in-review.  The major difference being that the incidents and activities about which we read all happened to someone else.  The view we have of those events, then, is colored by a couple of things to include the fact that there is no personal baggage or emotion attached to it.  These things didn’t happen to us and so we are generally more clinical in our appraisal and—yes—judgment.  On the other hand, our view of history is tainted by the fact that the person or persons who wrote the material may not exactly have been simply recording events for posterity, making it all the more likely their personal biases have snuck into their commentary, no matter how carefully the author may have attempted to avoid that outcome.

Regardless, since history is the written record of humanity, it’s all we have to go by and so we strive to read between the lines to understand what really happened in the past, not merely what was reported.  This takes much time, the balancing of multiple sources, and the crossing of several disciplines to get at the reality of any given historical event.  Yet when done well, the approach yields incredible results, truly worthy of the average reader’s time and intellectual energy.

I think we should all strive to look back upon our own personal histories—the previous year—with that same approach, attempting to look at the events of our own recent past through multiple lenses to better understand what took place and why.  In this manner, we can, each of us, work to make the next year better than the one before, to the great benefit of us all.

Regardless of how you all reflect upon 2019 and introspect upon yourselves, I wish every single one of you health, success, happiness, and blessing over the holiday season and beyond. 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all! 

I’ll see you on the other side.

M.G. Haynes