New Year; Same, Better Me

New Years Eve has never meant much to me. It’s a night where I get to dress up and if I’m lucky, see a few fireworks. I’ve never made resolutions or felt like all of a sudden my life was going to change. But this time around it was a little different. There was a calmness in my heart knowing that I was closing the chapter called 2016.

2016 was not one of my best years. Sure I graduated college and moved to Hawaii, but I’ve had better. Don’t get me wrong there were some pretty amazing, unforgettable moments that happened, but 2016 will be etched on my heart as the year of emotions. It was a year where I was standing face-to-face with foreign emotions that I couldn’t just sweep off to the side.

For the first time in a really, really long time I was forced to be vulnerable. I had to let down my guard and trust that the people entering my life were going to treat it with care. I learned that my personal happiness could be dependent on someone else’s presence in my life, and it scared me… Because once they were gone I couldn’t just run right back to them.

My routine was wrecked. My home team, the team I cherished and relied on, were no longer in arms reach. They were scattered and an ocean stands between us. Instead of lunch, and dinner, and breakfast for dinner, I have a text message or a missed FaceTime call. It is challenging to one day wake up and realize that nothing will ever be the way it used to and there is nothing in your will you can do to avoid it or delay it from happening.

I know there is no symbolic meaning to a new year other than having to buy a new calendar, but with all the jumbled, exhausted emotions in me I am throwing my calendar in a fire and watching it slowly flicker away.

The surprising constant in my life this past year has been time. It has been the hardest lesson to learn, but the one that proves always to be the most healing. New friends will not be made overnight. Familiar routines will not happen after one workday. And the feeling of everlasting joy does not come from one, good moment. Time has helped me get through the troubles of this year, and it’s allowing me the chance to celebrate as a new year approaches.

2016 you will not be missed, but because of you I am infinitely stronger, smarter, braver. 2017 I pray that you are not an emotional rollercoaster, but if you are I know I can hang on until the end. Here’s to a new year with the same, better me.