My friends and I have a shared Google Doc where we update each other on our lives, worries, and plans. It has now been two years since we started writing in it and I found myself reading through it the other day. Seeing how much we have changed and grew over the years has me feeling not so... stuck. I'll probably wake up tomorrow or the next day with that same stuck, wanting to get out feeling but right now I'm proud of us because none of us are where we were two years ago. That isn't something huge, of course, because changes are bound to happen over the years but I like being able to "see" the changes even if it is in the different worries, the different plans, the different writing styles in a shared Google document.
But (there's almost always a but), there is still a lot I want to do. And this year I'm going to be 1) making those things happen or 2) getting myself ready for those things to happen in the future.
I’m going to spend this year getting healthy, finishing grad school, and having a fun time. I want to go out and meet people. By this time next year I want to have wider and deeper experiences. I want to be smarter and more confident. I want to always choose my own well-being first but never to the detriment of others around me. I don’t want my life to be a series of “what ifs” and “if onlys”. I want to build up experiences, creating a mountain out of my life. I want to be wanted and worth knowing.
I’m more than the gazes that take me in and the hands that pull me closer.
I am flawed, but I'm also beautiful. I am opinionated, independent, strong, ambitious, open-minded, intelligent, loyal, and a calculated risk-taker. I am passionate about life and little things that bring me incalculable joy. I love books, writing, new notebooks, ballpoint pens, traveling, maps, street photography, architecture, libraries, roadside attractions, carnivals, new episodes of my favorite TV shows, movies that make me laugh or cry or shock me, doodling names of the people in my life, making To Do lists, fresh coffee in the morning, finding that sweet spot when writing word sprints, strawberry rhubarb pie, impressing my mom, dancing to music alone in my room, finding the perfect gift for someone, watching someone open a perfect gift, hanging out with my friends, that scared/nervous jolt of a feeling when you’re about to do something out of your comfort zone. I am a soul in a body and I want to treat both of them well. They both need love and respect and I’m the only that can give it to them.
This is how I'm starting the year:
Happy, loved, excited, and determined. Mission: make 2015 as memorable and life-changing as 2014.
