What a Year Can Do

My God-send of a best friend and I were chatting yesterday about the last 12 months in review. She knows I'm a touch obsessed with lists, and she has a planner which challenges her to make a different list every week (why don't I own this?), and this week's list just happened to be "list your accomplishments/achievements from the past year". She invited me to play along, and I'll admit that it was a challenge. I realized that:
a) Time can quite literally fly by you. It's something I think we all know, and yet this truth (and all its weighty implications) rarely makes it to the application stage in our daily lives.
b) Success is relative. She and I have each marked notches in our "achievement" tree this past year, but they happen to be of greatly varying depths. She was able to graduate college, got shot at and lived (interesting but true story behind her now well-touted street cred), competed in a Bioethics debate at Duke University, and marked a few things off of her life's to-do list. As I began to dig into the past year's memories and activities, I felt rather unaccomplished; no major milestones took place for me. But, the longer I thought about it, the more I came back to that humbling and comforting truth that I'm not in competition with anyone. I did great things, by my own definition, in the past year. Could I have done more? Possibly. But regret and longing for the past robs today of its energy and possibility. So, frankly, I'm just not going to go there.

All that to say, here's my list:
- I learned to bake bread
- I have learned to eat a much greater variety of vegetables and fruit
- I (along with my husband)have managed to pay for his undergrad with no loans
- I ran a 5k and a 10k
- I used my sewing machine for the first time and sewed my first craft
- I threw my first craft party
- I lost 5 pounds
- I volunteered at Mission Arlington for the first time
- I gave up soda for 4 months
- I tried kayaking for the first time (and fell in love)
- I owned a restaurant and made it to the 2 year anniversary (almost - July 5th!)

I encourage you to take a look back at the past 12 months - there are bound to be some successes, some failures, some happy moments and some disappointments, but they all have brought you to today. Maybe it'll provide a little inspiration for next year's look-back.

- Decide the person you want to be and make your choices accordingly. -

Always,
K