Just Look At Yourself

~ a year in review

Photo: Erynne Elkins © 2017

Truth be told, I don’t like watching “year in review” programs on tv. Yesterday, I finally figured out why. It isn’t my story. It’s a summary of how others lived their lives. I realize that some events (like the 2016 presidential election–sigh) directly impacted my life, but overall, most of the other occurrences didn’t happen to me. So instead of forcing myself to sit through that again on New Year’s Eve and Day, I decided to review my own life during 2016.

I revisited moments of hope, determination, excitement, desire, manifestation, disappointment, frustration, false starts, change, letting go, and realization. I accomplished a lot in 2016. Yet, I couldn’t wait for the year to be over. It was fun, at times, but it mostly felt like I was swimming through freshly poured concrete as I tried to do everyday things. At times, it was just unnecessarily hard. Many of those 366 days represented so many things not going as planned, hoped for, and/or even meticulously strategized. I can’t tell you how many times I was like, ‘WTF are you kidding me?’ Even my New Year’s Eve plans changed the day of. Don’t worry, last night worked itself out and I was not by myself. Needless to say, there were plenty of times in 2016 where I felt as if the Universe turned a deaf ear to me.

But then I realized that wasn’t the case. The Universe was moving pieces around and orchestrating things so just at the right time, I got what I asked for and in some instances it was so much better. I had to remind myself that the Universe has a photographic memory. Things I cherish often showed up in a compilation cd sort of way. So even though 2016 was pretty strenuous, I’m stronger for it because I’m still here. And maybe that was the point; to acquire the strength necessary to accomplish some really, big time things this year. Um. Okay. Thanks? But 2016, just to be clear, I’m glad you’re never coming back.