Part two of my annual round-up. For part one, check out my annual review for 2012.
The last year, or two, weren’t easy–and full of lots of mistakes–but incredible and far better than the first half of my twenties. I’ve mused lately, in my 29th year, what this decade will add up to. What have I done? What does my daily life look like? How have I changed? Have I made a mark on the world?
By and large, the latter half of the decade was far more psychologically and personally satisfying–coming into stride with many of my quirks and idiosyncracies, delighting in saying no in order to stay at home and work on a project purely because my soul wanted to, and deciding to skip, sing, hold hands and lie on the floor when I felt like it–all of this slowly built a foundation of happiness and glee I wasn’t accustomed to after coming off of years of teenage (and early twenty-something) angst. It’s worth saying, however, that much of the groundwork for many of my leaps and bounds between age 25-29 came through several years of dedicated, isolated, and non-public personal and professional efforts in my younger years.
In short: it gets better. For those who work hard, and who are exploring and taking chances, it adds up. Keep going. Learning compounds, (the right) friendships deepen, people stop caring if you have acne or armpit sweat or if you spit a little when you talk (or they tell you, directly and kindly) and generally they care more that you’re passionately geeky about something, that you take your energy and focus it on making things happen, that you’re crafting both an identity and a legacy in the world, albeit through trial and error. If you’re in a slough–and I’ve had years of undulations, so I understand the melancholy that can come from not understanding just-quite-what-to-do-next–stick it out another season, and keep experimenting.
In the meantime, here’s what I’ve gleaned along the way, particularly lessons that have solidified over the last year. In looking back through the essays on this site and musing over what I’d like to take with me, here’s what I’d like to carry with me for this next spin around the sun.Almost everything is far easier said than done.
It can take a year or a decade to learn a lesson and build a practice or a habit I joke that it takes me a year to learn a habit because I’ve got twelve months to try 30 days over again, and by the 8th or 9th time, I’m almost there. Yoga took me four years to get into. Running took me three years. Blogging, two years (or ten, depending on how you count and whether copious emails and live journal count as blogging). Every lesson I’ve learned I had to learn personally. reading other’s wisdom didn’t cement the idea into my soul, my being.
So for everything below, I’ll write the lessons–but in all probability, you’ll also have to learn them yourself. Continue reading “2013: Lessons to Take With Me”