Thursday, January 22, 2015

Happy 2015!


Happy New Year! We are 3 weeks into the new year already. I hope you are still feeling the thrill of a new beginning and all the possibilities that the year holds. I love the feeling of potential that is so strong at the beginning of the year. The sense that this could be a year of great things, the best year ever. It's a New Year! Anything could happen! And yet.....

This year is going to be the year my divorce is finalized. That makes this year one that is going to be tough, and sad, and the true start of a new chapter in my life. This is the year that I lose a huge part of what has defined me for the last 17 years. I will no longer be a wife. That's a big label. It's a label I'm going to take off and leave in the past, and along with the label, a lot of hopes and dreams will be left behind. When you stand before God, family and friends, and vow to love and cherish until death-do-you-part, many dreams and hopes and even beliefs are born. You dream of living life, and exploring the world together. You hope to raise kids, and weather storms, and celebrate victories together. And you believe you'll get cranky, and wrinkly and old together, and even that seems like an adventure, because you'll be together.  

Then life happens, and stuff happens, and people change, and you find yourself where you never thought you would be. And you have a choice. When you lose a part of yourself, a void appears.  It doesn't matter what that loss is - it could be a job, it could be a relationship, it could be a person. When that loss occurs, part of you goes too. And it's so easy to fall into the void that appears.  The void that can be so deep, and dark, and vast.

That void, however, can be seen from a different perspective.  It can be a blank slate.  A tabula rasa.  Endless possibilities. So that is what 2015 is going to be about.  Adventures.  Trying new things.  Going new places.  Rising to the challenge. Rising to the occasion. Rising. And I'm excited. I'm excited to share this year with you, and to explore what it brings. So Happy 2015. May your year be filled with adventures.