2015

It is finally time, to say goodbye to the year 2014. I love the spirit of reflection a 'new year' conjures. It forces you to acknowledge,'yep, another one down, how'd you do? what could have been better? what are you proud of?'

This past year has been monumental for me, more so than I will admit. With it's inception, I felt lost, as if no place or person or purpose would tie me down, or make the fuziness of my viewpoint vanish. Sitting at the same place I was when I wrote this 'retrospective' post last year, hindsight is my friend. 2014 seemed daunting, but I breathed through it and unearthed some meaningful lessons.

In the past year:
I drank coffee while listening to the rainforest of Costa Rica hum
I packed up my belongings in my Jetta and drove to Montana, then to Portland to sleep in my sister's bunk house
I wrote dispassionate cover letters and scowered craigslists' pages like some 'how-to' guide to getting your shit together
I tickled my nephew to pieces, fed him, fell asleep with him on my chest, became inspired by his daily discoveries in our de-glammed quotidian existence
I listened to the rain and did my yoga and was rejected by more jobs than I am willing to admit
I slang coffee without latte art and contemplated my worth
I moved into a house with a duo of twenty-somethings and got a 'real' job at a behavioral healthcare facility
By clients, I was yelled at, laughed with, hit on, threatened, bullied, and enveloped into the strangest kinship
I learned how to listen to people, to bear witness to their experience
I am still learning how to leave my 'work at work'
I logged grueling miles up trails and over bridges and through logging roads to train for the Portland marathon (that I ran in 4hours, 4minutes)--with the deep pain, I felt daily endorphin-induced ecstasy
Running taught me how to let-go, to be one with the uncomfortability and keep going--that everything comes in waves--the pain, the numbness, the blisters, the adrenaline
'just for fun' with my college friend, I hiked 50 grueling miles in 72 hours over ancient lava fields and oceans of obsidian in Oregon's Three Sister's Wilderness--toenails and arrogance as collateral
I giggled with my room-mates, danced in my kitchen, had weekly 'family dinners' picnic style in our lawn made out of fresh-picked vegetables from my first garden
I fell in love on top of Table Mountain in the Columbia River Gorge and haven't looked back since.

And here I am, in my kitchen at my parent's house, in the same computer nook I wrote 5th grade poetry and googled how to properly adorn a condom. In years previous, I would be ruffling through contact lists to 'make a plan' for the best evening ever--to get that kiss with a perfect stranger. My plans for tonight consist of a casual dinner with an old friend, and then reading bad online astrology predictions for Aries in 2015 with my sister and my puppy before we fall in an undefined mass of goose down and wool socks on my parents bed, most likely between 12 and 1am. And I've never been more pleased. Everything comes around.

Time is not how we see time. It is not measured in days lived, but in lessons learned.
So here is to another year, making those gyri in our overwhelmed melons groove towards balance and content!