I spent New Years Eve at my parents lake house with a few good friends. It was a night full of good conversation, good food (too much good food), bonfires, and champagne. Over the course of the night, we were discussing how the year 2012 had been for us… 

Consistently, the consensus was that 2012 was not our favorite year. There were break ups, job changes, moves, and frustration throughout our group of seven. Everyone was ready to shed the skin of the past year and look towards 2013 with more hopeful eyes. 

I, too, feel that 2012 was one of my hardest years to date. But I had the revelation yesterday that while hard, every moment of it was necessary. I needed to go through all of those moments to prepare me. To change me. To teach me about myself. I honestly believe that I am a completely different person than I was one year ago today. My hopes, dreams, and outlook are completely different. 

2012, you may not have always been pleasant, but you were required. Thank you for the bruises & scars, but 2013… let’s do this right.

“Time is not something you give back. The very next moment may be an answer to your prayer. To deny that is to deny the most important part of the future… Hope.” 

—The Time Keeper, Mitch Albom

Around this time of year, the word hope comes up a lot. As 2012 winds down, I can look back on a lot of changes that have happened over the past 12 months. But for the most part, this year has been about hope. Hope is a funny thing when you really think about it. It’s a bit like a candle flame. Sometimes it’s barely hanging on and you think it’s about to burn out, other times it burns really brightly and you can’t contain the spark. Often, that switch can happen in a day. 

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And Happy Birthday to anyone out there who is a leap year baby. Enjoy your very special and rare day!

You would think that moving back to your hometown would be easy. That you would know all kinds of people, that you would have built in friends, that your social life wouldn’t stall out. For some people, maybe that is how it works. Unfortunately, that’s not how it worked for me. I moved home and I realized that it wasn’t quite that easy. That at 27, it takes a lot of work to create a good group of friends.

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