As 2016 begins to wrap up I find myself home alone. My flight leaves in about 18 hours and my bed is cluttered with outfits and electronics and plugs and cords. All is quiet. The mess and chaos subdued. Moments like this seem so rare these days. It is a moment to reflect, to take a look back at the road traveled. The past year has been hard in a lot of different ways to a lot of different people. The growing sentiment is that 2016 was a dumpster fire with the losses of so many dear ones. The political turmoil of Brexit, and Trump have introduced. The tragedies of the Orlando, Nice and Christmas Market attacks have left us with aches in our hearts. It seems as if there is an unending stream of bad news in the world today. I too am tempted to wash my hands of the whole thing to say there was nothing good from such a year.
Yet 2016 wasn’t a total loss. Each of us has come through something this year. We have overcome and triumphed, even if it was only something small. Maybe you lost some weight, reconciled with your family or climbed a mountain. Some of us reached for the stars and missed. Some of us hit the target bang on center. When we look at the news we see a world in turmoil and it obscures the good that is in our everyday lives. Every day we have is a gift. Every heartache and struggle; every triumph and victory is another thread in the tapestry of our lives.
When I think of 2016 through that lens it no longer seems like year of constant bad news but a year of amazing change. A year of every day blessings. This year I was able to meet some incredible and wonderful people. I did things this year I didn’t think I would ever have the strength to do. It was a year I stopped running away and stopped hiding. It was a year in which friendships were tested, strengthened and forged. It was a year of learning, discovering and then teaching. It was a year of great hardship but also and amazing beauty.
Sometimes our lives are hard. Sometimes they make absolutely no sense. Then there are times when everything clicks. Times when everything seems right and the path before you is clear as a summer day. We have been surrounded this year by friends, by loved ones, by the families we have been born into and by families we have cobbled together ourselves. We have laughed together. We have prayed together. We have cried together. We do not walk the paths of our lives alone. We are cared for. We are loved. We are appreciated. We are not alone. I think that is something worth celebrating, something worth reflecting on.
This will be my last post of 2016. Thank you so much for reading and chasing your dreams with me this year. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season and I will be back on January 5th to talk about goal planning! Let’s make 2017 the year we reach for our dreams and make them a reality!