2011

I have a note on my laptop that reads "Remember to begin again..."  I can't tell you how many times this year I've read that and with a deep breath thought, "Yeah."

2011 hasn't been my easiest year.  I'm starting to think that's just how it goes, each year gets harder and harder.  The ironic thing is that's because it's so damn easy to complicate life.  Sometimes I complicate things without trying to, blindly.  Sometimes the only options are between complicated and impossible.  Sometimes it's just shit luck.

My motto for this fall as discussed with my father was attempting to simplify my life.  Spend more time for me.  Spend more time with people that I love most, doing the things I love the most, and in between learning to breath and relax a little bit.

Then I broke my ankle.
Then I walked on it for two months.
Then my dog died.
And I've struggled with work more than ever.

And all of that really isn't that much to complain about.  Around me my friends and family have also struggled this year.  Illnesses, breakups, job losses.  I'm not the only one who expected 2011 to be a tad kinder.  But it came and went (almost) and here we are.

 "Remember to begin again..."

I'm not yet ready to let 2011 go until I address how many firsts I had, how many times I put myself out there, the risks I took to begin again, to achieve that simplicity, to tap into myself just a little deeper, in search of the answers to questions I don't even know. How in one year, I became more experienced at being me.

 I set out.  I turned 30.  I did things I didn't ever have the slightest clue I'd ever do.  I joined search and rescue, I led a climb, I turned down a full-time coaching offer, I got and lost a dog (RIP Reinhold), I went on a bazillion Internet dates. (the book is yet to come) I participated in things we'd all talked about but it didn't seem like the day would ever come such as the many many marriages I was honored to witness.

I received awe.  Which is what I felt when I woke up in a tent with my mom on a road trip, eased-dropped on a conversation of my four-year-old niece and two-year-old nephew. I stood on the side of Mt. Rainier and watched the sun come up.  Awe in having witnessed my grandparents dance after sixty some years of marriage.

I can't lie.  I'd like to deeply exhale with the conclusion of 2011, but it's not all a sigh of relief.  The deeper I breath out the more I air I can take in to prepare myself for 2012.  The more ready I will be to begin again.