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!