Well hellooooo, Twenty-Eighteen! What up boo?! It's incredibly nice to meet you so far!
My dear sweet friends and readers: I hope your year has begun with lots of hope and promising outlooks for the future 12 months we all have ahead of us. We're over half way through the first one already! Let that sink in! 1/24th of the entire year has already come and gone with the blink of an eye. Isn't that a little amazing and a little scary all at the same time? I surely think it is!
If you're reading this, take a second to give a little personal inventory of your last 15 days:
How did you feel?
What did you do in the last 2+ weeks?
What New Years resolutions did you set before the clock struck midnight that you've kept?
Which ones are already out the door?
Who have you shown a little extra love to?
Who have you helped?
Is there any shame or resentment or guilt you've let go of and left in 2017?
Is there any you're still holding onto even now?
What did you want to do that you haven't yet?
What did you do that made you feel great?
The last couple weeks for me have been rather peaceful mixed with a sense of calming bliss and spiritual grace that wasn't present for me for the first half of 2017. I have yet to make any real "resolutions," but rather have been in a very reflective place in which I'm just taking into account things that happened last year that I do, and don't, want to see in this upcoming year ahead.
So 1/24th of this brand new start is in fact already lived and over and gone... that's so wild to me to think about. I'm happy that my last 15 days have been spent how they have, with the focus' of my heart for this year: Jesus, family, smiling & laughing more, good coffee, rest, prioritizing my days, taking time to take care of me, budgeting, art, and making efforts to positively impact others lives.
Though nothing is set yet as a real or official resolution, I've already been practicing the things I want more of in this year in the last 2 weeks. And practicing things I want is a lot better than just making a resolution for action to take place, without the action actually happening.
Lately I've been hearing a lot from friends and loved ones that "2017 was just not a good year."
Why was that?
Did you lose someone you loved in your life that you won't get back?
Did you not hit a goal you wanted to hit?
Did you reach a rock bottom mentally, emotionally, or physically that you haven't climbed out of?
I think it's important to ask ourselves these questions and think about why things are "bad" when they're bad, or why they're "good" when they're good. I've learned especially in the last year that so much of our life happenings are centered around perspective, and how we literally CHOOSE to view our heart aches or difficulties.
Let me give an example:
I am a planner almost to a fault. My life lives in a small book in my purse that is color coded with pens and markers to distinguish the day-to-day, hour-by-hour happenings in my life. You can ask me today what my schedule is on March 17th at 3:47pm and I can tell you exactly where I'll be and what I'll be doing... or rather I can tell you what is PLANNED that I'll be doing.
But what if something de-rails that plan? What if life happens and the plan doesn't go as planned?
Well, of course, I'll go into an anxiety coma and stress out everyone around me, while simultaneously wasting excessive energy on something that is more than likely completely out of my control, which will de-rail the rest of my day, and maybe even my week and maybe even my month... right???
Nawwwww, fam :)
Now the old me would've definitely reacted in that way. But the older I get, the more I read, the more I pray, the more I listen to people older and wiser than me, and really take life for what it is, the more I realize that there will always and forever be things that are going to de-rail our plans.
Someone you know in your life will always be in pain, someone you love may leave or move onto an after life, some thing you want will be in reach and suddenly seem impossible to get to... these things are just destined to happen. And WILL always happen.
I recently read, "Trouble is inevitable,"
(sheesh you don't have to tell me twice)
"It's the misery that's optional."
Woah...
When I read that, something really profound clicked and made sense deep within me: it can literally all be about our perspective with the 'curls' we get thrown in life.
But back to my planner-intro! I was in Denver for a brief 21 hour layover over the weekend and had planned to be there for that layover to spend time with an old friend on the way back from a 4 day trip in Portland, Oregon! That trip had gone beautifully and was spent with love and total relaxation!
However, when I got into Denver, my friend scheduled to pick me up was nowhere to be seen or heard from! I was legitimately stranded in Denver for what was (from that landing time until my next take off back home) 21 hours.
Now the old me would've absolutely gone into the anxiety coma referenced above. But the brighter-graceful-perspective-me thought the following:
"These are the current circumstances. They're happening. So what are you going to do to make the most/best of them?"
So what did I do with this unexpected and unknown freedom? I took a train into the city, I hit up Starbucks to charge my phone and read, I went to my company's sister restaurant to have dinner with my discount, I went to a church service where a friend I met from Passion Conference leads worship to get a fill up and reminder that God's ALWAYS got me, and then headed back to the restaurant where an incredible manager within my company happily offered up her couch for me until I had to head back to the airport at 4am.
It was probably the craziest and should've been the most anxiety ridden 21 hours of my year, but it wasn't! It was terrifyingly freeing! And that was all based around the perspective that I took the de-railing with!
"Trouble is inevitable, it's the misery that's optional."
Furthermore, I dealt with some extreme loss during October when I found out that my Dad's mom, my 95 year old grandmother, had made her move up to Heaven. That woman was an incredible rock of support and love and guidance my entire life, and knowing of her leaving this earth was incredibly hard to swallow.
I cried heavy and hard the first day I found out, but honestly haven't shed a tear since then.
She wasn't on this earth anymore where full chaos and disorder happen. She wasn't in pain anymore from her muscle or back aches. She was reunited with my Grandaddy and my Daddy, two of the most important human beings to her entire existence. She was the most steadfast believer in our Heavenly Father and was now flying high over me as a brand new angel.
How could I cry about this any more than once?
I heard recently that the grieving process of life is never for the person we're losing or have lost, but quite literally for ourselves and the pain that WE are experiencing in not having them here with us anymore.
Maybe it's because my faith and hope is so rooted in Christ after this last year of growth that I just feel so at peace with death and difficulties. I'm not sure... but I'm surely thankful for this perspective and calm that Gods gifted me with for 2018.
Now don't get me wrong or mistake my words here; we should absolutely cry about things and feel everything that we want to feel when dealing with life's hardships or struggles. But we can feel these things, accept them, and then let go of them and move forward. Feelings have life-spans, and if they're bad today, they can be good tomorrow, so long as we choose them to be so!
_______________________
Previously in this blog, I've written about how to live better and brighter lives in a dark world: '12 Months of Sunshine.' But this year, I'm changing it up a little. My plan for this year is to write more about my real life experiences so that people can physically read about and then relate to or understand better, rather than just life advice. More things that directly happen in my life that I say aloud "I can't write this stuff if I tried!" I'm going to try to write out those experiences with my thoughts, perspectives, people, and Jesus at the center of them all, cause He's wrecked into my life in all the crazy ways over the last year! Those will be the happenings of "Grace." Gods grace, the universes grace, people's grace... all the forms that grace can come in!
I'm also going to try to get raw and real and write a little more outside the box about life's struggles without the "pretty writing filters" on top. Yes, I am a glass-half-full gal most of the time as a human, but I have some dark days just as much as the next crazy lady! And I think it's important to remember that being human and feeling feelings society doesn't allow us to feel are number 1-okay, and number 2- necessary. These will be a mirror and metaphor of all the craziness in and on my head: the "Curls" of my life!
12 Months of Sunshine was an inspiration for me to write and hopefully for many of you to read! And I implore anyone to go back and read it again to guide you towards more light in your new year of 2018!
But thus marks the end of last years series and the start of something new. I hope this post kickstarts thoughts and personal inventory for the upcoming and remaining 23/24ths of the year ahead.
Join me in my upcoming writing as I explore Gods love, the worlds happenings, and the wisdom gained from another day in this thrilling life: "Grace and Curls." It's gonna be a twisty & beautiful ride :)
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