2009 Year in Review

If 2008 was a year characterized mostly by big change I did not choose nor want (Dad's death, losing my dream teaching job after just one year), 2009 has been a year of making new choices for changes I want. 2008 was a year of survival until my trip to Argentina for Habitat for Humanity. That trip in many ways gave me the release I needed to start a new life for myself, to decide what I really want in order to be happy. After 11 months of grief and disappointment, it was time to change my perspective.

In December/January, I was convinced that in order to be happy, I had to effectively traumatize myself out of my comfort zone by completely uprooting and moving to a new country. I thought that if I had the courage to move to England, I would come back with the confidence to find the life I really wanted here.

I had a lot of free time during those months (5 sub days in about 10 weeks...) and I used it to read, write, and generally figure out what exactly I envision for myself in the big picture. I read and re-read Eat, Pray, Love; He's Just Not That Into You; A Return to Love. I watched Oprah. I made a vision board. (If you don't have one, get one!) Slowly, I began to change the way I look at my own life, my own choices, my own attitude. I began to break out of the patterns that had kept me lock

ed in my house for nearly a year.

(The vision board includes my goals for my life in the areas of

romance/home, travel, teaching, world citizenship, family, and self.)

The goals for 2009?

1. Be happier with myself as a person.

2. Be more social.

3. Find ways to feel worthwhile and satisfied that are not related to employment.

At first I thought I had to go out and find new friends; a daunting and unpleasant prospect. In the meantime, I wanted to be more consistent about the friends I already had. My credential friends and I started having monthly "Diva Dinners" to catch up. I started a book club without having any idea of how beneficial it would be for me to reconnect with people from high school. How was I to know that having those people in my life again would accomplish my exact goal of "making new friends?" I didn't need *new* friends, I needed people who knew and understood me already. I needed the Divas and the Lady Longhorns.

A year ago, I would've expected to have entirely new friends, a new place to live, a completely new life at this point. Instead, I have old friends, a home filled with love and support and family, and a life I had all along but am so much happier to be living now. The bullet points of my life right now don't seem like much (unemployed 26-year-old who still lives at home and is rapidly running out of savings money to live on...), but in reality I am just so undeniably happy. I live with my best friend. I am friends with my sister and get to spend time with her regularly. I have a boyfriend who makes me feel confident and happy and excited. I have learned to be happy with the accomplishments of every day tasks, rather than feeling like a failure because I don't have the job I want. If this is my starting point, I can only hope that 2010 will be even better.

Wishing everyone the peace and hope and happiness I feel this season.