My Year's End

Christmas is just around the corner. The new year will follow soon after. 2010 is quietly coming to a close. It was an interesting year. Somehow, it was one my most difficult years but also one of the most rewarding.

Many lonely nights I sat in my car trying to convince myself that driving home is not the right answer. Moving away from everyone I know. What was I thinking? It doesn't make sense really, what I did. I left everything. My family, my friends, my support group, my job, my teachers, my sister's home-cooked meals, and even my parent's Wii. It was all left behind so that I could, what? Eat mac n' cheese every night and live in a shoe box? No. It was left because it was my cushion. It was my comfort zone. Having all those things created this buffer around me so that I never had to think about anything. I never had to figure out who I really was. I moved here to tear off the mask and look in the mirror. It's the scariest thing I've ever done, but I would never grow without coming to grips with that stark reality. This is me. This is me. Oh my goodness, this is ME! I'm awkward and clumsy but I'm also talented and driven. I'm not afraid of who I am. I'm not afraid of who I could be, or who I will be. The future is vast and unimaginable. Full of choices and possibilities; full of failures and triumphs. But now I'm not so afraid of the failures that I'll ignore the possibilities. I'm not afraid of putting my soul on paper for fear that someone will reject me. Of course I'll be rejected. But not by every one. Not every time. And I know now that it will always be worth it to put yourself out there instead of hiding in a corner, afraid of what people might think. Scaring yourself into being someone you're not.

2010. It was a year for facing fears and for new beginnings. It was, overall, a year for going to the world and saying, here I am. Take it or take it because that's your only option.

Merry Christmas, my dear friends. Merry Christmas.