Year Fading........

So, here we are--just a little over an hour until the new year begins. I feel like I should say something inspiring and sappy, but I don't know what that would be. So, by the light of my multicolored C'mas tree, I'll just say what's on my mind instead.

2008 was an odd year. I lost my mother this year. That should make it a bad year.

But good things also happened. I proved to myself that I'm much more capable of dealing with adversity than I thought I would be. I also learned that, if I really want to do something, I can accomplish it just through sheer force of will. I wrote 50,000 words on a novel for NaNoWriMo this year, and the last 25,000 of those were written in only 3 days.


I've reconnected with a couple of old friends, which I thought would never happen. I'd already placed those relationships in the past because I thought they were irretrievable. Life threw me a curve ball on that one. But that's OK. I've gotten used to those, and I can hit them out of the park pretty easily.

(I'm using baseball metaphors. Now I know I'm addicted to the game.)

Speaking of baseball, both of my teams did rather well this year. The Twins made it to the playoffs, and my Rays damn near won the World Series. (In my heart, they did win, so take that, Philly!).

And, best of all, America elected a new president. A smart president. A competent president. One who's inspiring, and made me care again about this country in a positive manner. One that makes me feel like it still might be possible to get this country on the right track again. We need to turn this nation around, get it moving in the right direction (and by that, I mean, to the left) again. I don't want to forget the last eight years because that would be dangerous, but I do want to prove to the world that, despite the Bush/Cheney fiasco, most Americans know how to correct even the most grievous of mistakes. And that is what President Obama signifies for me (and, I hope, for the rest of the world)--course correction.

This year also served as the year where I finally discovered what I really wanted to do at school, and I've joined the sociology grad dept. to work on my Master's. Most (but not all) of the coursework is interesting to me, which is more than I can say for any other dept. I was in.

Personally, I've learned to speak my mind a little more than I used to. I realized that shutting up and giving in wasn't getting me anywhere that I wanted to be. I've lost some of my shyness and nervousness about speaking my mind, and that's improved things for me quite a bit. I still have issues with public speaking and giving presentations, but at least I can do them without completely freaking out now.

So, what's on tap in 2009 for me? I'm not really sure, and I'm all right with that. There are things that I'm hoping for, but we'll just have to wait and see how things work out. Right now, I just want to live in the moment, not overthink things, and just go with the flow for a little while. That's been working for me lately, so I'm gonna stick with it for a while.

What's 2009 hold for you????

Love you all, my friends, and Happy New Year!

Take care of yourselves,
Christy