It's a new year full of new hope.....hopefully...:)

I sat down in front of my laptop this morning and my fingertips rested on the keys without movement for at least 10 minutes...occasionally I would clasp my hands in my lap and wrench my fingers and then place them on the keys again waiting for the words to come....and then I walked away for a bit because nothing came.
365 days, 8760 hours, 525,600 minutes, 31,536,000 seconds that are gone. Last year was tough but this year....phew....I'd take one hundred last years over this year. Even just writing what I've written so far has huge tears streaming down my face....geeeesh....I have to come back to this.
I'm sure that my posts often relay as a complete downer sometimes but I feel like a blog is meant for you to share where you're really at with your life....the good and bad and everything in between.
I remember writing my blog last year, almost giddy at the end of the year, never so thankful to say goodbye to those 365 days. If only I had known. This year tested me on every level imaginable in more ways than I ever anticipated.
There were days when taking my own advice of keeping my eyes on the sky was completely impossible....I wanted nothing more than sit in my closet and cry for days.
I used to think that I knew where I was going....and now....now it seems I'm waiting.....waiting for a sign....waiting for the something that happens that tells me what direction to go. I feel like there isn't any point in publishing this if it's filled with fluff when that isn't real. Sometimes we don't say out loud where we're really at because we know people will judge us but what I've learned is that no matter how you're living your life....someone is always judging and I guess at the end of the day....it just is what it is....judge me or don't....it doesn't really matter. I also have to acknowledge that there is huge fear in saying it out loud because when you do that, you have accept that you yourself, know where you're at and as Dr. Phil says "When you know better, you do better." All that to say, I wouldn't be being honest if I didn't say how I really feel, however let's keep in mind that it's okay for it to be a toned down version of how I feel because no one needs the full version of truth here.
There have been more days than not when I wanted to run to that familiar place where I felt like I could just breath and be and where for a few perfect moments my life would fade away. To that one place where the gentle comfort offered to me reminded me that I was still someone. There have been more days than not when I have wondered where I'd be right now if I had turned left instead of right. I have gone to the same places I visited before, just to feel the smile cross my face in the remembering of parts of my life that didn't feel quite so hard. I have listened to the songs that take me somewhere else, so that I can feel those old feelings again because all of these feelings hurt too much. I float back and forth between feeling like the strongest person in the world to feeling like the weakest. I spend hours wondering how people really get past big big hurts....how do you do it? I'm sure that Linda( an amazing woman and everyone's much loved Therapist) would say that it's all in the choosing....how do you frickin choose it though??....am I too stubborn to choose it or too weak to choose it??
In so many ways this has felt like the longest year of my life and yet somehow it's shocking to me that this year has come and gone. I'm realistic enough to know that the first half of this next year is going to be hard....emotionally hard....but I have faith that somewhere in there, God will open my eyes to the things that I need to learn about myself, and the courage that I need to take away from this one way or the other so that I can move forward. Life should be a constant evolution of change and growth and if you aren't changing or growing then you aren't truly living....how many times I remind myself of this.
Sometimes you see the path in front of you, so perfectly laid out, just simply waiting for you to walk it....maybe that path is the design for my life....but I also know that moving in a different direction is another path where the road is not so plainly in sight, where the unknowns are mine to explore....and that path is terrifying but if there is one thing that I know....one tiny little thing....it is that through all of life's changes I will still keep breathing and a new day will always come.
I wish that blogging a New Year's Resolution would help it hold so much more conviction but I know myself well enough to know that 6 days from now I may totally be bitching about announcing my resolution out loud because it's too hard to keep....soooo.....this isn't a resolution. These are a few of the little things that I have learned.
1. Words are just words if there is no action with them.
2. I believe the best in people even when they have shown me the worst.
3. There are genuinely kind people in the world who don't want anything from you.
4. Clearly a person never runs out of tears.
5. A lot of the stuff you think matters.....really doesn't.
6. I should always listen to that little something that tells me that I know better.
7. I'm okay being the boss of myself.
8. Thinking about Karma makes me smile.
9. Being who you really are isn't that hard, especially if you're okay with the fact that not everyone will like you....and I'm okay with that.
10.I never want to be responsible for changing the mental and emotional make up of another person in a negative way....perhaps that's why I am often more gentle with my words than they deserve.
11. I have far more appreciation for the all the people in my life who loved me without telling me what to do.
12. Just because you make a plan doesn't make it so.
13. Honesty really is the best policy.
14. Someone can only take your power if you let them.
15. Having faith in something that you can't see is brutally hard some days but there were days where that was the only thing that got me through.
16. My purpose in life does not lie solely in being the everything to one person.
I could go on but I think I'll save some things for a profoundly insightful post in the future. This post seems to hold no great wisdom or intention....it's just simply where I'm at and reading it back it does sound kind of depressing but I'm not depressed. Unsettled a little and restless a lot but not depressed.
It's hard for me right now to go into the New Year with a rah rah sis boom bah attitude but I am trying to spark a slight sense of optimism that change is good and I can handle every day that comes my way no matter how hard it is.
For my family and friends I wish nothing but happiness, contentment and abundant blessings this year. May you laugh more, cry less, dream bigger, and love stronger and may you always find joy in the simplest of things.