New Year & New Beginnings

"She will rise. With a spine of steel and a roar like thunder. She will rise." - Nicole Lyons

Hello Dear Friend,

I pray that this holiday season filled your home with joy and laughter, brought your weary soul some peace and gave your heart a newfound hope. Well, here we are! It’s the start of yet another new year as well as a new decade and hanging from its coattails is a new chance to have the world at our fingertips.

Do you remember the start of 2019? I remember being so ready to peace out of 2018. Don’t get me wrong, there are some good and happy memories that I grateful to look back on. But it was a painful year that brought a lot of sorrow and hardships. So as you can imagine, I was more than ready to say goodbye and embrace 2019. Or so I thought…

I began 2019 full of hope. I was certainly happy to be starting out fresh and leaving the past behind me. I was desperate for change and well, change is definitely what I got! It all began during the second week of January and as the year mimicked an unwelcomed tempest moving directly towards me there I stood as a helpless victim unable to derail from its path. I won’t go into all the details but I spent a good portion of 2019 in the middle of the storms aftermath. Okay, that was not the direction I foresaw this going so let’s make a turn shall we?

Sure I had to deal with the fury of the blasts but through those hardships came growing pains - the good kind. Those pains of growth stretched me, strengthened me and drew me closer to my God. Reflecting on 2019 isn’t all bad. I was promoted to a Senior Designer at the beginning of the year allowing me to achieve the personal goal I had which was to receive that title within five years. Not to brag but I did it in four and a half, so yay, go me! I had a chance to see some old friends and make some new ones. I went somewhere I’ve never been, twenty-six years in the South and I’d never been to the Outer Banks, go figure. While there I “got to” experience a Nor’easter which is basically just a fancy way of saying a cold and rainy beach vacation due to storms coming in from the North. But I got to experience it with my family during our first family vacation in several years while blessing my mom for her 60th birthday. I attended the largest creative conference in the States for the second year in a row which sent me to sunny California in November and provided me the opportunity to bond with a team member. I spent Thanksgiving morning hiking with my mom in what has become an annual thing for us and the week of Christmas I got to spend away from work, making memories with my family. I also lost over twenty pounds and have managed to keep it off. Those are just some of last year’s highlights.

Yes, I mostly focused on only the good parts of last year but as I start off 2020 I’m reminded of how much I’ve overcome in the past two years and of all the ways I’ve grown. Although I’m eager to see what lies ahead in this new year, I’m thankful for everything. All of it, from the disappointing hit after hit and the mental/emotional beatings I took, to the lessons I learned each time that I pulled myself up and came back swinging. In all the lows I've found myself in I fought to climb my way out until I could finally see myself on higher ground. In the sorrows, I fought to celebrate. Instead of staying down and wallowing in pity I chose to look upward. I chose to focus on all the ways God’s has blessed and enriched my life. I chose to see that God continued to give me grace under fire.

This year I declare that I will shed all the pain and bitterness and awaken new joy.

With love,

a Poetic Soul