Oh, and Happy New Year

What a year 2011 was for me. I thought I was in love one other time in my life - perhaps I was, but this year I experienced my first love and my first real expectations of marriage. This year I have experienced a broken heart unlike any other heartache I have felt before. I have experienced one of the happiest nights of my life and some of the saddest - though, not the hardest, I would say, for which I am grateful. I went through a down in my mental health that took awhile to get through - part of getting through it was forcing myself to not avoid, and I'm glad I forced myself through it. I saw numbers on the scale that I haven't seen for a long time (Yea!). I failed out of one part of my life. I began another part. This new part is different from the old in significant ways, but similar in others - similar in my faith in God and Christ and His church. And that is what always makes life worth it.

I decided awhile ago that I have entered Jamie's Lonely Time, and while 2012 is beginning that way, by the end of this new year I hope to be done with that and into a new place. I haven't actually written down goals yet, but I'm hoping to form new relationships and learn new things - oh, and keep dropping pounds. Recently I texted some of my siblings and quoted a line from the Harrison Ford Sabrina. My brother-in-law wanted to know if that meant that I was going to cut my hair, get a black dress, and wear dark lipstick. Although that's not my literal plan, and I can't go to Paris to find myself, I do hope that I can transform myself into something better and more confident and content.

I wish you a very good and meaningful 2012 full of growth and happiness (happiness even when life doesn't go the way you envision it).