Appreciating the Past and Moving Forward

I'm not a proponent of New Year's resolutions. In my opinion, we are capable of starting new and fresh whenever we so desire, even if that means it's 3:05 pm on a Tuesday in July. But I AM a proponent of learning the lessons of the past, closing chapters of our lives, and moving forward.

I sat down the other day to write my goals for the new year, but it felt premature without fully appreciating all that 2015 has offered me.

So instead of goals, I wrote a list of the many lessons I have been blessed to learn over the last year.  There were great times and difficult times, but I wouldn't trade any of it. Each moment taught me something unique and vital to my journey. Here is my list:

1. I became 100% sure that I didn’t want to be married to my husband and filed for divorce. No regrets.
2. I realized that I could make it on my own – financially, emotionally, and physically.
3. I became a stronger version of myself. I learned who I am, who I want to be, who I was, and who I don’t want to be anymore.
4. I learned who my true friends are.
5. I fell in love, or thought I did, then realized the incredible pain and heartache of not being loved in return.
6. I learned that pain, no matter how great, is temporary.
7. I learned what I want in love, in a man, in a relationship.
8. I found out that I don’t have to be anyone else but 100% myself. I like myself. A lot. And people like me too.
9. I learned that I don’t have to please everyone, and that it’s okay if people don’t like me. I don’t need to have everyone else’s approval. I can just be me, and those who are meant to be with me will stay.
10. I found a new romantic relationship with someone that I can be 100% myself with, and feel even more like myself when I’m around him.
11. I learned that love is a series of decisions and choices. That I can choose to love someone and give myself to him by choice. I don’t have to lose myself to someone. I can be fully me and also love fully.
12. I saw my higher self in a meditation, and she comes to meet me whenever I call for her. She’s wise and calm and sophisticated and elegant and happy. She has a positive light and always a content smile on her face, like she knows all the secrets of the universe but is perfectly happy to sit in quiet solitude appreciating the tiny hairs of a caterpillar.
13. I was reawakened to the idea of writing for me, not for anyone else. I have a book in progress that I feel good about. I feel like it will help people.
14. I became happy, content, serene. And I’ve learned how to be comfortable there, enjoying it instead of  waiting for the next crisis.
15. I became really good friends with my daughter and appreciate her at a new level.
16. I lowered my medication, started eating better, and became healthier overall.
17. I learned that life keeps getting better. I keep learning. There’s so much more. It will never end, and I don’t want it to. What an amazing adventure I am on. God has empowered me to become this person that I never thought I was capable of being. I’m more than I ever thought I was, ever thought I could be. God has amazing things in store for me – more lessons, more love, more pain, and more happiness.
18. I’ve learned that there is a wide pendulum of emotion, and it can’t fully swing into the best happiness without fully swinging into the darkest sadness too. But if I’m experiencing the wide swing of the pendulum in all of its best and worst moments, that means I’m ALIVE, that I’m capable of feeling. And that by itself is such an incredibly beautiful gift.

 
What an amazing year! How can it get better than that!?! I’m looking forward to what adventures lie ahead for me in 2016. I’ll write my goals for the year in a bit, but not now. Right now, I’m basking in the bliss of having experienced, having loved, having learned, having lived!