2011 has been hard y'all.
In ways that it is not my right to share here (both personal and in a career sense).
In ways that were shockingly adult, which having already entered my 30s, it shouldn't come as a surprise to me that I might have actual adult problems. But in many ways, my life and career had previously been in stages that were a preamble to really doing something, and making choices and facing consequences, and those things have only just come to fruition shockingly recently.
But all that hardness came with a lot of good this year too.
Because 2011 was, for me, a year of Yes.
For much of my life, I have not really been much of a yes person. I was more of a maybe, and far too often a no kind of girl.
I have, for years, been content to sit on the sidelines in a variety of ways. This is both in direct contrast, and in no contrast at all, to my confrontational nature. While I have never had much time standing up for myself, and forming an opinion, those strong characteristics were often an excuse for inaction in a variety of ways.
"I'm not taking part in that," was often followed by a explanation that didn't necessarily lack in logic, but was lacking in providing an alternative way to take part in things that didn't initially suit my fancy.
2011 was a year I stopped making so many judgments, and more importantly I think, suggesting alternatives. All ways of saying Yes.
Yes to that happy hour invite that didn't suit my work out schedule.
Yes to dinner reservations when it would be so much easier to just make buttered noodles with parmesan cheese at home.
Yes to making that phone call.
Yes to sending that text.
Yes to extending an invitation.
Yes to accepting one.
Yes to RED HAIR.
Yes to that green dress.
Yes to sharing that secret.
Yes to finally realizing the joy of being happy for someone else.
Yes to not being jealous.
Yes to empathy.
Yes to seeing the other side.
Yes to making time for a new friend.
Yes to making time for an old one.
Yes to trying out that new class at the gym.
Yes to admitting that what I thought I wanted might have changed.
Yes to being the kind of person other people want to approach.
Yes to standing up for myself when its worth it, and yes to letting other things just go.
Yes to finally loving Dallas.
Yes to laughing out loud.
Yes to realizing that saying no to one thing can be yes to another.
Tonight I was telling a friend about this whole Year of Yes concept (which was never a Plan per se), and she told me that it was inspirational, what I had done and that she hoped to try to implement the same thing in her life in the coming year.
That is not the kind of thing anyone has ever said to me- that I was an inspiration to do more and it do it better in their lives. And it felt really good. I have never been an abject failure in the ways we traditionally measure success- I graduated from college, I went to a good law school, I finally got that job I wanted, I traveled, I had friends and a husband. But in a lot of ways I had failed myself, and many important people in my life by not trying and using my success in certain facets of my life as an excuse to check out of others, and not fully immerse myself in the things I was doing.
For the first time in a long time, I am trying to actively make choices to better myself, and who I am for others, and I hope that 2012 represents a continuation of this concept. Because Yes is so much better.
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