For some reason I woke up this morning thinking about all the ways that my life has changed over the past year. A year is such a short time. 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days, 8,765 hours and 525,949 minutes. Well, I suppose when I put it like that it feels like an eternity. The point is: some people don’t accomplish much in one year, but for me this past year did just the opposite. I remember writing on New Years before we were graced with 2013 and I was begging the year to bring me something good. I wanted to be able to rid myself of lingering feelings for that unattainable newspaper reporter and I wanted to find pleasure in simply being me. I wanted to become someone or something that I could be proud of.
While my feels for said reporter lasted longer than I would have liked. I finally found peace with it. I no longer resented him for the way that he unknowingly led me on, or the way that he came to me house to cry over his ex girlfriend. I let it go. I let it all go.
I started to forgive myself for mistake that I had made in the past, and began to think of all of those one night stands/rendezvous as moments to learn from and move past rather than dwell on and feel somehow slutty or tainted.
Friendships with unlikely people began to sprout up in every facet of my life. I didn’t feel embarrassed to invite strangers over or to start spending time with co-workers. It didn’t take long for me realize that everyone is looking for a friend or someone to spend time with. If you make a gesture, it will be returned.
Many evenings in 2012 and early into 2013 I spent with tears in my eyes as I convinced myself that I wasn’t good enough. It took a beautiful leather bound journal a new fountain pen, and many evenings tirelessly writing to realize that this wasn’t the case. I was looking at it in the wrong way. I was looking at everything in my life as a measure of self worth. Why was it that when a boy told me he wasn’t ready for a relationship I took that to mean there was something wrong with me? Or, when I misinterpreted signals coming from a friend of mine to mean something more, when they didn’t, I spent days blaming myself for being such an idiot. I was always too hard on myself.
Somewhere over the past year I stopped blaming myself and being so self critical. We are human. We make mistakes. There is no sense persecuting ourselves over them.
I don’t really know where I was going with all of this. But, there it is.
coffee for one 
We all have such revelations at some point in our life and it is always so relieving. All we have to remember and believe in is that everything happens for a reason. Every person or thing part of your life was or is there for a reason and once their part is played, something else will crop up. Life is a learning process. We have to stand up and be brave enough to pass the tests that come our way. Blaming ourselves for what we interpret as failures or mistakes won’t lead us anywhere. Thank you for sharing this … Reminded me once again that it is ok to not be perfect. 🙂 Happy blogging and keep inspiring!
Life is most certainly a learning process, and the unknowns make it exciting but also terrifying. Thanks for the kind words!