2011 reflections

It’s been an up and down year for me. I made a best friend and lost a best friend. I fell in and out of love. I moved homes, and switched jobs. I have had moments of suffering and experienced a multitude of joys.

I have lived.

In many ways, as I sit here and write this on the last day of my year, I feel like I have taken more steps back then forward. But this is not the truth. Life is a series of falls and rises. Some of them are big and alter our lives in profound ways. Some of them are small and seemingly inconsequential. But all our falls are opportunities to rise, having grown and hopefully bettered ourselves.

I am in the middle of a fall at present. From Miss Sucky’s perspective, my whole world is crumbling around me and melting into an abyss of nothingness. Miss Awesome knows better. What seems like a never ending merry –go-round of pain and agony is in actuality only temporal. This too shall pass. I can and will pick myself up from the ashes and rise again. And instead of fighting it, I have decided to embrace this fall. I know that even in my hurt, my brokenness and my disillusionment, that my life still is something beautiful and worth fighting for.

I’ve had moments recently when Miss Sucky has swept in with her pessimistic attitude and laid out a pretty convincing reason or two to give up. But I am not Miss Sucky. I am Miss Awesome, and even in this pit of despair, that is my truth. So I look back over the year with mixed feelings but no regrets. I am glad that I am so capable of loving. That I am willing to be in touch with my emotions and give them room. So many people allow their past hurts to stay with them. They carry them forward into the next chapters of their lives and allow those hurts to tarnish all that they touch.

It is my mission to not let all my pain color and distort my future. Bad things befall us all. Life is hard. It hurts. Sometimes we take a sucker punch to the jaw. But we must find a way to move beyond the pieces. I refuse to allow my past and current hurts to dictate my coming year. Instead, I look forward to 2012. May it be a year of growth. May I fall and rise again and again. I welcome its breath on my face. I anticipate that, like previous years, 2012 will be one of highs and lows. I have learnt so much this past year. Most of this learning has come from the fires of suffering. But I am a better, stronger and healthier person for those experiences. Miss Sucky may tremble at the thought of another oncoming year, but Miss Awesome raises up her hands and shouts “Here I am!” So thank you 2011, for all that has been. And Welcome 2012…. May this year be as rich and chaotic and challenging and wonderful as those that have come before.