The End of a Decade, the Start of an Age

I used to think people were crazy when they would tell me, “just wait until you graduate- the years will start to fly by.”  And here we are, at the end of another year (and another decade!!), and those words never rang truer.  I feel like it was just yesterday that I wrote my 2018 reflection post and now I’m writing this one for 2019.

Speaking of 2019, what a wild ride it has been.  While I’m looking forward to everything 2020 and a new decade will bring, I’m feeling nothing but gratitude for my experiences in 2019 and the last decade.

In the last year, I:

• Attended 8 weddings in 4 different states;
• Celebrated my dog Oakley’s 3rd birthday;
• Saw my brother graduate with his third degree;
• Celebrated my second wedding anniversary;
• Visited Pittsburgh, my college town, Rehoboth Beach and a few new places including North Beach, Maryland; Niagara Falls, NY; Egg Harbor City, NJ; and Hico, WV;
• Ran my 2nd half marathon ever and absolutely crushed my PR;
• Slowly built up our savings account again;
• Finished my 1st ever draft of my first novel;
• Worked on my first edit of said 1st draft that went from 30,500 words to $73,000 and counting!

Over the last decade, I:

• Attended somewhere between 15-20 weddings;
• Graduated high school with honors;
• Started/graduated college with honors;
• Met the love of my life in college;
• Married the love of my life;
• Traveled to 2 different countries and 11 different states;
• Ran 2 half marathons and many collegiate 6Ks;
• Moved from WV->PA;
• Started my first big girl job and left that job for a new one almost three years ago already!;
• Adopted Oakley;
• Bought our first house;
• Saw 2 of my siblings get married;
• Attended somewhere around 10-15 concerts;
• Attended at least one pro-sports game in Pittsburgh for each team (Steelers, Penguins, and Pirates);
• Faced my fears of swimming in the ocean;
• Survived 2 monster snowstorms, one in WV and the other in PA;
• Attended around 3 (I think?) Countdown 2 Craziness events in Durham;
• Joined a sorority and gained the most wonderful sisters and friends;
• Started this blog;
• Published my first ever article;
• Began freelance writing;
• Created a magazine for my senior project that promoted body positivity.

And those are just the good things.  Of course, there were a lot of tears throughout the years- from deaths in my family to heartbreak to a lot of stress.  But I’m choosing to look at the positives and all of the wonderful opportunities I was fortunate enough to experience over the last year/decade.

With a new year/new decade come new goals.  And while I didn’t quite hit all of last year’s goals from my previous post, I’m determined to work hard on them constantly in the new year.

My goals for next year:

• Read at least 15 books;
• Finish at least one (but hopefully two!) GoT books;
• Practice more self-care;
• Stay more consistent with my skincare routine;
• Exercise consistently;
• Run another half-marathon, this time with my brother;
• Finish my novel;
• Create a website for my freelance writing;
• Do more house projects including painting my kitchen and our bedroom, and ripping out the woodstove in the basement;
• Get outside as often as possible;
• Travel somewhere new;
• Write frequently;
• Enjoy the year and the start of a new decade.

My goals for the next decade are:

• Work on my personal growth;
• Write another novel or two;
• Get a certificate/degree for editing;
• Start a family;
• Become financially stable enough with a side gig that I no longer have to work a part-time retail position;
• Enjoy everything the decade brings- the good, the bad, and everything in between.

My challenge to you is this- have an incredible year/decade.  Be true to who you are even if you’re still figuring that out.  And most importantly enjoy your life and make the best out of the cards you’re given.  I certainly will be.

Until next year,

Emily

P.S. Happy New Year!!

 

Featured image by: Deva Williamson on Unsplash

Title of this post inspired by Taylor Swift’s Long Live.

Welcoming the New Year with Last Year’s Reflections

The end of 2018 for me was extremely busy, leaving me with little to no time to reflect.  But during my lunch at work yesterday afternoon, I took an hour to reflect on the highs and lows I’ve experienced over the last year using Ed Gandia’s 2017 article about reflecting and planning for a more prosperous year.  In the article, Gandia provides 24 questions (plus a bonus question) that really help you to summarize your year, the highs and lows that you experienced, what you wish you had done more of and how you can accomplish that in the new year.

Through my reflection, I realized the following:

• I always come up with excuses as to why things don’t get done.  One of my resolutions for 2018 was to exercise more frequently.  However, throughout the year, I made excuses frequently as to why I wouldn’t work out (i.e. “I’m too tired” or “I’ll go to the gym tomorrow morning instead”).  I also didn’t have much motivation to exercise, nor did I ever try to find that motivation.  Writers are often told that, even on bad days, to just write.  Write through the doubts and fears, the writer’s block and the days where everything sounds terrible.  The same should have been applied to my exercising habit.  I should have tried harder to exercise on the days where I had no motivation, either by reminding myself of the benefits of daily exercise or by getting a friend to exercise with me.
• Worrying doesn’t get you anywhere.  One of Gandia’s questions asks what top 2 or 3 worries did I have and if the worrying was productive.  Worrying seems like it’s unavoidable in certain situations, but the two rough times that I went through during the year were just made worse by worrying.  In further explanation, Oakley, mine and my husband’s dog, went on a little adventure for 10 days while Kyle and I were on vacation (aka he got loose while a person we trusted was dog sitting him).  We were thousands of miles away from home and were in no shape to travel back home early from our vacation on the day that we found out because we were both a mess.  Sick with worry, we hardly talked that entire day to one another.  Rather, we both sat in the living room of our rental and were glued to our phones hopeful for any news of a sighting.  We hardly ate anything that day nor did we rarely move from our indents on the sofa.  Even when we were able to return home early from our trip, we were still unable to focus on anything.  Work was absolutely terrible- I couldn’t concentrate on anything, especially when my phone would vibrate with a facebook message or a text message from a friend or family member.  Luckily, we eventually found Oakley and all is well now, but looking back on that entire situation, the worrying got us nowhere.  I wasn’t able to concentrate at my job, I wasn’t eating that much or sleeping well, and I felt exhausted all the time.  I feel like it was natural to worry in that situation, but worrying myself sick and to the point where I couldn’t focus on anything else was not healthy.
• I get in the way of my goals.  This goes along with the first bullet point, but it was a hard truth I needed to realize.  There were many things I wanted to accomplish last year (writing more often-especially my blog, exercising frequently, eating healthier, creating a website and a business plan for a project I’ve been envisioning) but I didn’t do any of those things- or, at least, not frequently enough to notice a change.  I said “Oh, I’ll work on it tomorrow” a lot throughout the year.  Spoiler alert: Most times, I did not work on it the next day.  And that was only my fault, no one else’s.  It shouldn’t matter if I have an entire day planned out.  If there’s something I want to do, I need to make the time to do it.
• I spent more time indoors than outdoors.  To be fair, 2018 was one of the wettest years on record for the state I live in.  However, even on the sunny days, I spent more time indoors rather than outdoors and that’s something I want to work on this year.  Instead of spending so much time on the couch watching TV, I want to take more walks with Kyle and Oakley.  Instead of scrolling through social media, I want to do more exploring in the city I live in and the surrounding areas.  I want to travel and enjoy as much time outdoors as possible.
• I didn’t keep in touch with a lot of people.  Sometimes it took me days to respond to a text message or a facebook message of a friend, and that’s really upsetting to me.  I used to be very good at responding efficiently to messages, but for whatever reason, I just didn’t respond.  Not only that, but I didn’t get to spend much time with friends.  Granted, the time I did spend with them was wonderful and I wouldn’t trade that for the world, but I should have put forth more effort to see them more frequently.  Sometimes I think that goes along with time.  I would say things like, “We can plan on getting together once things slow down a bit,” but that time never came and then months would go without seeing them.

With all of that being said, I truly did have a pretty wonderful year.  Kyle and I bought our first home together, we got our first dog, I wrote approximately 28,000 words in a novel, I celebrated with many friends at their weddings, I got to see my big brother get married, I was able to plant a garden in front of my house and restain my back deck, I had a really great year at my job, and I was able to buy a brand new bedroom furniture set.

Here are just a few of my resolutions for 2019:

• Stop making excuses.
• Get outside as often as possible.
• See friends more often (and if I can’t physically see them, make the effort to reach out to them via a phone call or text message).
• Travel somewhere new.
• Stop worrying so much.
• Write frequently.
• Exercise often.
• Read at least 20 books (Side note: My goal for 2018 was to read 10 and I read 13!).
• Paint all the rooms in my house.
• Do one major project to my house.
• Enjoy the year- Focus on the highs rather than the lows.

I hope to be sharing the progress on some of my resolutions with you on this blog over the next year.  I also hope that you all have a wonderful and prosperous 2019.  If you’re in the resolution-sharing mood, feel free to leave me a comment below and tell me what your resolutions are and how you plan on accomplishing them!  Thanks for reading, friends!  Happy New Year!

 

A Reflection of 2015 and the One Thing I’m Leaving Behind

The last few hours of a year are filled with people around the world reminiscing upon the variety of memories that took place over the previous twelve months.  On social media, I’ve seen many negative posts about how 2015 was the worst year that people experienced.  While I can almost relate to that sentiment (believe me, I have a list of things that happened in my life that I could add to the negative stigma surrounding 2015), I also have many blessings to be thankful for this year that I would like to reflect upon instead in an attempt to end 2015 on the most positive note as possible.

1. I got engaged.  That’s a pretty big deal.  I’m only 23 (22 at the time of the proposal) which I know some people will say is young, but that just gives me more time to spend with the love of my life.  I’m not giving up any freedom by getting married young (which, actually, we’re waiting until 2017 and I’ll be just shy of 25- which isn’t young in my opinion); instead, I’ll have more opportunities to experience new things with my best friend.  I’m truly thankful to have found someone so young that is always so wonderful to me.
2. I moved out (officially) of my parent’s house and am living in an apartment with my fiance.  Whenever I was young, I made a promise to my parents that once I moved out, I would only come back to visit-my siblings had a tendency to move out and move back in and I didn’t want to do the same thing as them.  So, I’ve been living in Pennsylvania unofficially since June of 2014 when I got a part-time job in PA after graduating college (it was the only place that would hire me).  I didn’t want to make the big jump of switching my license, insurance, and everything else until I received a full-time job.  I started full time at a job through a temp agency back in March, became full time through the company in June, and by June 30th, Kyle and I moved into our new apartment together and I am now a Pennsylvania resident.  I’m proud to say that (so far) I’ve fulfilled that promise I made when I was young.
3. I have always paid bills on time.  Bills suck.  I would give anything to be a child again to live carelessly and not worry so much about money.  However, since I’ve been on my own (in the sense of being independent from my parents), I’ve paid every bill I’ve had on time- sometimes even early- including student loans, which I can now say I’ve paid on time every month for a year as of this December.  Even though money is tight and sometimes I don’t get to do the things I want to do/spend it on a spending spree on desperately needed new clothes, I’m lucky to be able to say that I’ve always had enough money to put food on the table and pay my bills this year.
4. I got a full-time position at a well-respected defense law firm.  Before mid-March, I was working at a catering company as a server part time and wasn’t making very much money at all.  In March, I accepted a full-time position at a law firm as a transcriptionist.  Since then, I became full time through the law firm itself rather than the staffing agency that helped me find the position AND I was promoted as a legal secretary and am now doing twice the work I was before.  Law isn’t at all what I went to school for and it’s not exactly where I pictured myself, but I’m blessed with amazing coworkers who make me excited to go to work.  There are also days when I’m incredibly stressed out (there’s really no happy medium there- I’m either constantly busy or struggling to find work to do), but my coworkers are happy to listen to my concerns and usually help out in any way they can, which is always much appreciated.  All of this will make saying goodbye that much harder to do whenever I do get my dream job, or at least another job that will be a step in the right direction.
5. I rekindled old friendships and realized how important they are to me.  Childhood friends are forever.  Life gets in the way, and it’s tough to stay in contact/ to visit them sometimes, but they’ve seen you at your worst and your best and will always be there for you.  I was able to visit many old friends throughout the year to catch up with them.  I even walked around a quaint little town in West Virginia a few days ago for hours catching up with one of my best friends and just talking about life and how so much has happened this year.  Even though I don’t talk necessarily to them all day/every day, I know how much I mean to them and vice versa.

There are plenty of other great things that happened this year and plenty that I want to bring with me into 2016, but there’s one thing that I plan on leaving behind:

1. NEGATIVITY.  I wish I could explain why, but I have been overly negative over the past year, and I feel as though it has progressively gotten worse.  I’ve been negative about my career, certain people, money, my weight, and I’ve even been envious of other people’s lives.  However, we’re all in different places in our lives, and we all have things that are good and bad in them, so there’s no reason for me to compare myself to others.  My negativity about my career will just push me to strive toward my dream job even more. I will leave behind the people who I have negative feelings toward so as they don’t cloud my happiness.  Overall, my goal (and resolution, I suppose) is to be a better person.  I want to work on myself and become a better person in every aspect.  Though I didn’t have to wait for 2016 to start working on this, a new year is like a blank page in a notebook- you can start fresh and leave everything behind that you don’t want to include from the previous page(s).

I’m thankful to see another year, to see the ball drop on TV, to spend another night with the love of my life, and to have the best friends and family a girl could ask for.  Though there were a lot of bad/sad memories in 2015, I’m thankful for everything that happened because each event is shaping me into the person I am becoming.

With that being said, I hope everyone has a safe and happy New Years, and I’ll post my resolutions next year (aka tomorrow)!  Happy (ALMOST) 2016!