January Has Come Again

Well, here we are, back in January again, collectively amazed that it is 2016. Time flies. I keep seeing all of these posts about where people went and what they did in 2015, celebrating their awesomeness, or their new children, or their successes and lamenting the losses, the depressions, the sad times. While I normally start each year hopeful and ready for anything, this year I am just - complacent?

I know that I didn't accomplish everything I wanted to in 2015. I didn't go back to school, or learn a back handspring, and sadly still can't play guitar. I didn't participate in NaNoWriMo (who has the time?) and I still eat fast food. I also didn't leave the country, move out of Omak, or get glasses. But you wanna know what I did do?

I learned to drive. I bought my own DSLR camera and booked a wedding. I didn't move out of Omak, but I moved in with the boy who may or may not be the love of my life. I was in a show, worked backstage for another show, and did hair and makeup and emergency crochet work for a third show, then auditioned for a small role for a show that starts rehearsing in February. I got a cat. I learned the joy of painting. I quit my job and got a new one that makes me happy. I attempted to get three separate freelance jobs and none panned out, but I got replies to all of my inquiries that were positive in that they liked my writing but negative in that I didn't get an offer. I went to my little brothers football games, and watched my other little brothers face light up when I let him use a DSLR camera for the first time. I repaired relationships, I may have destroyed a couple of relationships, I quit caring about people who don't care about me, and I went back to embracing my face sans makeup. I started my own photography website, I opened a savings account and it has money in it. I figured out budgeting (in like, October, but still). I learned the value of my own life and the people in it. I figured out how to take a compliment, and how to stand up for myself. I broke up with two separate people and realized when your gut says "don't", you probably should listen. I went to a wedding, I met babies, I took newborn photos and held some of the sweetest babies I've ever met (even if one of them cries whenever I hold her and her mother is in the room. Apparently that's normal, though?) I laughed, I cried, a lot, 85% percent of the time because I get emotionally invested in tv shows, and I got evacuated from my house because a fire came a little too close.

I learned so much about who I am, and what I want, and I learned that I am learning. I don't have it figured out, and thats okay, because I'm 22. I have a road I want to travel down, and I may be stalled out at the crossroads or maybe stuck in a ditch going the opposite direction, but I learned that if I have faith in myself I can accomplish anything. So I've decided to retire my yearly goal list. Because there may be things I hope to accomplish every year, but I feel like lists and resolutions are sometimes limiting. So this year (okay, one goal) I will live unabashedly. I will embrace everything with an open mind and heart. I will be open to adventure, new experiences, and new ways of going through life, and I will continue to work toward the Alexis M. Olmstead I've always wanted to be, to become my own "goals". Also, I will blog more.

Here's to the passing of another year and the beginning of a new one. Thanks for sticking with me through it all.