I’m sure you’ve all seen this post coming… the one where I wrap up my year. For the past month or so I’ve been thinking about all of the blessings and trials of this year, as I’m sure we all have. Last year I summed up my year by choosing three words that represented 2017. Well, this year I’m going to choose 3 words that I hope will describe 2019 for me. I don’t usually set New Years resolutions, and when I do they aren’t very specific. Part of it is because I always add and take away things from my list anyways, but most of it is because I don’t ever figure out all the things I want to accomplish in a year, right at the start of January.
Reflection
In Maria Goff’s book Love Lives Here she talks about visiting our “ponds”. I understood this term as our ponds representing our life, and events that happen in our life. Sometimes we let these events and situations sink, we don’t want to revisit them or even spend time helping them float. She also refers to going back to our ponds, for a chance to see our reflection. To reflect on our lives. You see, this year has been great for me. I feel like I have taken major strides in my mental health, but at the same time I think there are a lot of things I’ve been pushing down in my pond, wanting to sink and stay at the bottom. But what I’m realizing now is those problems will never stay at the bottom. They always have this way of releasing air and floating to the top. They tend to float to the top when we least expect it, and I find that most of the time we don’t want it to happen. I need to spend some time reflecting so that I can be happy with myself and my circumstances. It’s not that I’m not happy but I feel like I’ve been lying to myself by convincing myself, and others that I’m doing better than I actually am. This year I need to do better about diving into the pond and grabbing my “hard things”. I’ll have to become scuba certified with the help of an instructor, in other words a therapist. And that’s okay. Because we could all use help once in a while, even if we hate asking for it.
Love
This year I have met the most remarkable people. Some in person, some just over Twitter and let me tell you, I’ve learned ALOT. I’ve never been a hateful person, or so I like to think. This year I want to practice genuine love, toward myself and toward others. I have learned over the past few years that we truly are nothing without love (1 Corinthians Chapter 13). When I no longer reside on this Earth I want people to remember me as someone who loved, and loved well, in a way that didn’t discriminate or exclude anyone. And I want to love LOUDLY. I want to be able to express my appreciation and love for individuals without feeling shame or judgment from others, which means I must stop caring about what other people think. I want this love to come naturally, I want to become good at pushing thoughts of hate and judgment out, and welcoming thoughts of acceptance and understanding in. I want to love more, and love better.
That brings me to another type of love I need to work on. Romantic love. I’m not saying I’m making it a goal to fall in love this year, or be in a relationship or even be married. Although all of those things (except the last one) sound nice, I mean that I need to get in a place where I’m emotionally ready for that. I need to practice being more vulnerable, without fear of what comes after me pouring my heart out. Which kind of goes along with the section above, reflection, I have to dig out those old mishaps and feelings so I can rid them for good.
Something that happened this year is that I turned 20, and it feels like as soon as that happened people started getting engaged and married around every corner. I’m a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and it’s kind of part of our culture to get married young, start a family, etc. So I’ve been getting asked the daunting questions that go a little like this (by a little like this I mean literally like this):
- “So are you dating anyone?”
- “When are you getting married?”
- “Are you attending church so you can find a good husband?”
The list goes on but to spare you and I from cringing, I’ll stop there. I won’t lie there are times where these questions have bothered the heck out of me. Mostly because I know for a fact that there is more to me than whether or not I am dating someone. As much as the questions bother me, I’m not just going to go get any boy and tell him to date me so that it will stop. I know there are plenty of my own issues I have to sort out before I bring someone else along for the wild roller coaster known as the Annily Extravaganza. This year I plan on doing that, and hopefully I’ll accomplish it before the year is over. Trust me parents, grandparents, church leaders, and everyone else asking me those questions listed above, there is nobody who wants those things for me, more than myself.
Change
Ahhhhh. Change. Something I am not very fond of, or familiar with on a large scale. Earlier this year I wrote a blog post sort of relating to change and stepping outside of my comfort zone, which I’m not very good at. And it took someone else pointing it out, for me to actually realize it. Well this year (2018) I made a pretty big decision. Probably the hardest and biggest decision yet.
Most people when they graduate high school have decision overload. Choosing what college to go to, if any, where they’ll live, what job they’ll have, etc. It was different for me because I did a year long internship that pretty much occupied my life. I attended community college and kind of took a break while I figured some things out.
Over the summer, I started to realize that although I love my job and have a great one, I needed to move on. I’m someone who is always striving for personal growth and you could even say that my job is the thing that taught and motivated me to do that. But I decided that it’s time for me to move on and to focus my attention on full time school and part time job, instead of the other way around. I also am back and fourth about what I want to do as a career and I needed to make a move in order to decide what comes next.
What I didn’t expect my decision to be, is a literal move. August of 2019 I will be moving to Rexburg, Idaho and attending BYU-Idaho to further my education. So yes 2019 will be filled with change, but my hope is that I will adapt to change. I know that it won’t be easy and it won’t be perfect at all. But what my hope is, is that it is a learning experience and that it helps me accomplish some goals of mine. I’m sure I’ll post a separate blog going into more detail about lessons learned, and of course adventures I go on.
For now, my goal is to accomplish this move. And to embrace change.
So 2019 here’s what I have to say to you in summary. I hope that this year is full of reflection, in order to improve on my vulnerability. I hope that I can learn to love more fully, and gracefully in order to make others feel as though they belong when they are in my presence. And I hope that all of this change is something that I can embrace with open arms, and good spirits.
Here’s to you 2019, and here’s to all of us trying to make it the best year yet.
Annily M'chela Hawks 