It's been three years since a major bend in the road of my life coincided with the start of a calendar year.
Then, I was excited. Then, I pinned all my hopes on a time of transformation overseas. And it was a time of transformation, growth, friendships. I'm grateful.
My attitude now, however, is a bit different. Still hopeful, but cautious and apprehensive and not-all-of-my-eggs-in-one-basket-anymore as I prepare to move from California to Colorado in less than a week. Too much has happened since then for me to believe that transformation will happen so easily. I'm tired.
It's become a bit of a mantra with me that "I either feel a lot, or not at all," and this business of saying goodbyes is of the feel-a-lot variety. So I've been reaching for my journal more often over the last couple weeks, finding solace and sense in pouring out and pressing through with one of my beautiful Japanese gel pens.
2014 was the year of reading more. I want 2015 to be the year of writing more. Blogging more, maybe, hopefully, but even journaling alone would fill the need ... would perhaps fill it better, being without the baggage of self-promotion and insecurity that can happen in places like these when the soul isn't quite healthy.
2012 was the best year of my life. 2014 is certainly a candidate for worst, though my perspective is certainly skewed given my closer proximity to this year than to all the other hard ones. A year of depression, loss, questioning everything, stagnation. A year where international travel was no longer an adventure, but a heavy weight. A year, metaphorically, of being in at least two constricting boxes.
Physical relocation provides ample opportunities for change, but my hopes for a better 2015 don't — can't — depend on that. Rather, it's in the finding and seeking out of spaces to be honest with myself and honest with others. Over the last two years, I've found myself in self-imposed and externally imposed situations where I've felt the pressure to bite back the true, the raw, and the real in exchange for the acceptable, the sanitized, the pretty.
May this be a year of daring greatly.