Holiday break ends in the morning, as I go back to work after a week and a half of of travel and visiting and generally enjoying myself. And as I plan my meals and run the laundry and do all the housekeeping things that get me back in the workaday mindset, I’d be remiss if I said I wasn’t reflecting on what a year 2013 was to get me here.
You can use this handy weblog you’re reading for a moment-by-moment recap, so I’ll spare you anything extensive. But I couldn’t not appreciate the wonderful journey 2013 was for me, as I’m not sure when another year like it will come around.
As adults, we don’t often get the breathing room to really make the changes we’re yearning for. Travel more? Not enough vacation days at work. Find a new job? Don’t have the skillset or training to make the move. Discover a new talent or finish a big project? With what time, exactly?
Every now and then, though, if we’re lucky – no, not lucky. If we’ve planned and worked and arranged the dominoes of life just so – every now and then, one of those unicorn-like years of big changes and significant growth actually rolls around, and the only thing we’ve got to do is fling the door open wide and let it in.
That was my 2013.
From a dream job in the mountains to a dream vacation on the other side of the world to a (mostly) dream life in the Big Apple, 2013 knocked on my door January 1st and said, “You know what, Trifone? We’re gonna make some changes up in here. Fasten your seatbelt…”
I don’t have any such expectations for 2014, and I mean that in the best way possible.
Because years like 2013 can’t happen every year, or – like a Christmas that comes every month – they wouldn’t be as special. Instead, my hopes and plans for 2014 are fairly simple, potentially mundane. All I want in 2014 is to be settled, to be content. In work, in my apartment (even if I do have to move in the Spring), in friendships and relationships.
That’s very different that to settle, I’ll note. That is not my intention – far from it. Instead, and as my mom might say, I’d like 2014 to be a year I can bloom where I’ve been planted.
