Select Page

2012, was a year of movement. It was a year of exploration and realization. Last year was a year of pushing boundaries, testing limits, trying and failing and flailing and resurfacing stronger than before.

2012 was a good year.

This time of year, after the ball drops and a new year has begun, it’s natural (and widely over-written about) to stop and reflect on the previous year and set goals for the one to come. I’ve read countless blog headlines: “2013: The Year of Love,” “My Resolutions,” “Visioning 2013.” I whole heartedly believe that it is good (and crucial) to have goals and a vision in life. To resolve to do things better, be more organized, love harder, pay more attention — whatever you feel like the previous year was lacking, to improve upon those things.

For me, I always take a look and reflect right around my birthday. Two weeks after the new year has rung and I’m getting settled from the chaos that comes with the holidays.

Yet, I digress.

I began reading a book a week or so ago: “Twenty Something, Twenty Everything.” Essentially, it’s about going through your “twenty-something crisis.” Or your “quarter-life crisis” as it’s more widely known. I’m not quite sure how I stumbled upon this book (I’m fairly certain Amazon recommended it to me and I fell into the black hole of “if you like this, then you’ll like that” and three hours on the Internet later, I settled on this book). “She writes like me,” I thought. So I chose the book.

I’ve been feeling “weird” lately. I know, “weird” isn’t a very descriptive word, but the truth is, I have a hard time describing it otherwise.

Christine Hassler, the author of the book, puts it best, “nothing is really wrong, but nothing really feels right, either.”

For the past three years, I have been so certain of every aspect of my life. I knew, in the depths of my heart of hearts that I was supposed to be in San Francisco, that I was supposed to be working for Context Optional/Adobe, that I was supposed to be with my boyfriend, that my life is exactly as it should be.

Six months ago, I began wondering; is where I’m supposed to be was really where I want to be?

I started to question everything. Wondering if I’d made all of the right decisions. Wondering if I really was supposed to be where I am, working where I am, dating who I am, friends with who I am, living where I am. It just spiraled.

(Into a glass box of emotion).
If you don’t get the Anchorman reference, please stop reading now.

I stopped writing (as you may or may not have noticed). I stopped writing even in my journal. I just didn’t know how to put into words what I was feeling. I closed up to the boyfriend. I hadn’t had a good talk with my dad in months. You see, nothing was wrong. But nothing felt right anymore, either.

I still don’t have all the answers. Hell, I don’t even have one of them. But as my dad wrote in our back-and-forth journal, this is life. I’m going to be uncertain. I’m going to be stressed and anxious and wonder whether I’m doing the right thing or if I’m doing well enough or if I am where I’m supposed to be. He wrote, now that I’ve discovered that this is life, I have the power to choose what I do with it.

Balance. Focus. Peace.

Those are my words for 2013.

I want to discover. I want to be open. I want to think, but not over-think. I want to be calm and patient. I want to be focused, but free. I want to be content with not knowing all the answers right this minute and be aware enough to trust they’ll come to me when they’re ready.

2013, let’s go places.

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This