The end....and a beginning

The only regularity I seem to have for blogging is at the end of the year.  It's the one time when I always feel compelled to write something down before one year ends and a new one begins.  Any other time during the year, consistency be damned, apparently.  So here is my End o' '13 Blog.

I've spent many years of my life, and I've said this before, lamenting the things that I don't have instead of seeing the blessings in the things that I do.  Most of my almost 38 years have been spent being upset about what didn't happen instead of what did.  I thought I'd been learning lessons at the hardships in life and instead I was so focused on all of the negative that it's exactly the same energy I kept drawing to me.  Instead of seeing the good in my life, I was angry that it wasn't great.  I focused on what went wrong, what could have happened, what should have happened.  I was determined to believe that my life was more garbage than good and that conviction made it so.

Over the years, I have repeatedly heard the phrase that you need to hit the bottom before things will change.  And sometimes you think you've hit the bottom and then discover that the bottom has an underground garage.  And other sundry tunnels and levels you never discovered.

I started to outline my list of good and bad for the year and just deleted it all. Suffice to say that the ups and downs were plentiful for 2013 - as they are for everyone in every year.  Bad things happened.  Good things happened.  New people came into my life.  Old friends came back into it.  Some grew apart.  Some left like the diseases they are.  There were some near misses, some blessings, and all in all, there were moments that sucked out loud and moments that were magical beyond words.

A new friend and influence in my life this year has taught me that it's all in our perspective.  All of our years have good and bad.  And they aren't always in equal measure.  But it's within our own power in how we see it all.  If we convince ourselves that the bad is all we're ever destined for, then that's how it shall be.  Positive brings positive, or so the self helper's sayings go.  And as much as I would like to refute that or argue it, it isn't wrong.  As much as I've always said that things needed to change - most of all, I needed to change.

I'm not walking into the future in a stupidly optimistic fog where I think everything is made of hearts and stars and unicorns.  I'm no Pollyanna.  What I am doing is spending less time freaking out about the things that I cannot change, finding lessons and nuggets to be grateful for in the things that aren't so great.  

I lost things this year - but could have lost more.  I gained things and I'm grateful.  So 2014 is soon to be upon us and I'm most grateful to start the new year with a better mindset and perspective to take on the challenges that those 365 days will bring to my door.