Happy New Year! Because we can still say this for another week or so, right? For about as long as it takes us to stop writing “2018” on our checks and homework assignments and stuff…

If you’ve been following me for a while, you might know I had tremendous optimism for 2018, but didn’t enjoy the year that much at all. Great things did happen and I will forever be grateful for the good that occurred. But looking back at 2018 is like looking at a mean lunch lady who chucks your pizza at you from across the cafeteria. Yes, she’s giving you food, and yes, it is PIZZA for goodness sake and you love it, but she’s being incredibly uncool about it and you have to get up and face her wrath every day, and it probably costs money. In fact, she probably beat you up and took it from you, then threw the pizza at you and screamed at you to “SAY THANK YOU!”

Despite all this, I still rang in 2019 with tremendous optimism, and I hope you’ll let me share some of that with you for your year to come. I spent a few hours downtown last night and watched a jazz band called the Hot Sardines play at the Fox Theater. It was so great to soak in the infectious energy, not only from the band but the people who dressed in their best “roarin’ 20’s” attire last night, like they were ready to go “roarin'” into 2019 and insist on enjoying the next trip around the sun. I also love that social media crackles with positive energy around January 1 each year, but there are always a few downers who insist that “No, the new year will NOT be any better, because time isn’t real and humans invented it.” Fair point, smarties, but isn’t it also true that we can all be a little better? We can go into the lunch room with catching mitts, for example, or bring our own pizza. 🙂 We don’t have to go in with difficult resolutions. I actually didn’t make any resolutions at all. Every year, I simply pick a word of focus, and use that as a “theme” for how I will approach challenges.

There’s one moment in particular that I want to take with me from 2018:

This photo represents a time when I seized an opportunity and went ALL in on something new, even when all possible outcomes scared me. It was a short adventure that could have changed my life in a number of ways, but in the end what it really changed was my perspective and what I believed about myself. It was a time I knew my future was in my hands alone, and that I had the full support of people who cared. It was a time when I felt bold.

Bold (adj): showing an ability to take risks; confident and courageous.

This is my word of the year! I know what it means for me and how I can practice it in writing and life, but it may mean something different to you, or you may have an entirely unique idea of what you want out of 2019. I’m here to encourage you to grasp onto that theme and not to be afraid of it, whatever it is. If there are a couple of days where you notice it slipping from you, it doesn’t mean 2019 is a bust. It means “let’s stand back up and try this again. Let’s be stronger, wiser, and face the year with an open heart.”

Wishing you all the best in the year to come!