Happy Thursday, everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are recovering nicely from the holidays. I’m kicking off this weird time of year between Christmas and New Year’s with my “Best of 2019” series. I’m starting with my favorite end-of-year survey. I’ve been filling out this survey for a few years now and it really is a great way to look back on the year – the good, the bad, and the ugly.
1) What did you do in 2019 that you’ve never done before? Traveled to Europe. Went to a book signing (two!). Attended a cooking class. Photographed a wedding. Went to a concert (…well, that wasn’t for a Christian band). Had hibachi.
2) Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? Of course! I love to make a yearly goals list every year. I’m working on my list for 2020 and I’ll be unveiling it next week. Stay tuned!
3) Did anyone close to you give birth? Yes! One of my dearest friends gave birth to a beautiful baby girl in November.
4) Did anyone close to you die? No.
5) What places did you visit? Ireland (Galway, Kilkenny, and Dublin), Boston, Key West, and Nassau, the Bahamas.
6) What would you like to have in 2020 that you didn’t have in 2019? I would like to find love. I think I say this every year, but it feels especially true right now. I find myself longing for romance and companionship. I want to find my person, I want to someone to laugh with and adventure with and share my deepest desires with. Right now, more than I’ve ever felt it in my life, I feel like it’s time to fully invest in dating and see where it takes me.
7) What dates from 2019 will be etched in your memory forever? February 16th, which is Lila’s “gotcha” day. And November 10th, which is the day my friend’s baby was born.
8) What was your biggest achievement this year? Getting to a place of stability with my mental health, and staying that way for many months. I spent the last few years (honestly, probably the majority of this last decade) embroiled in major anxiety and unhealthy thought patterns, and it wasn’t until I started medication and therapy that things began to truly turn around. With the medication, I stopped feeling like I was constantly standing on the edge of a mountain, my heart pumping with adrenaline. With therapy, I was able to work on my self-esteem issues and my unhealthy thought patterns and start to connect the dots on what’s reality and what’s not. A few years ago, I could have never suspected I could feel the way I do today. I thought anxiety would always be a constant presence in my life (and, to be fair, it is, but at a much lower level, one that is entirely manageable). It’s an amazing accomplishment for me.
9) What was your biggest failure? Not finishing my novel. I’m so close to the end! I wrote 80,000 words of my novel this year and was hoping to use December to wrap it up, but it didn’t happen.
10) Did you suffer from illness or injury? Yes. I had some GERD issues in the spring that I ended up seeing a doctor for (cleaning up my diet was the trick!) and I broke my ankle in December.
11) What was the best thing you bought? Hm… I’d have to say paying the adoption fees for Lila! Runner-up is my ticket to Ireland.
12) Where did most of your money go? Probably to travel, which I can’t be mad about. I went on three great trips this year and I loved them all!
13) What did you get really, really excited about? I was stupidly excited about my trip to Ireland. I spent so many months planning for it and was so excited to finally see this country I had only seen in pictures for so long! I also got really excited about my cats – seeing them at the end of a long workday, cuddling with them in the morning, etc. They have filled my life with such immense joy!
14) What authors did you discover in 2019? So many! I finally read novels by John Boyne, Emily St. John Mandel, and Anita Diamant. I fell in love with Lucy Parker – her romances were some of my favorites of the year – and really enjoyed the wonderfully diverse romances from Adriana Herrera. I was also impressed with the debuts of Angie Kim and Casey McQuiston.
15) Compared to this time last year, are you a) happier or sadder, b) thinner or fatter, c) richer or poorer? I am much happier, a bit chubbier, and richer.
16) What do you wish you had done more of? I wish I would have reached out to friends more. I have a bad habit of waiting for people to reach out to me… and then feeling sorry for myself when nobody does. But I’m also not reaching out as much as I should, and I want to get better about reaching out, making plans, and not letting my own insecurities get in the way of my relationships.
17) What do you wish you had done less of? Less worrying. This was a year where I worried so much about changes that were happening and how I fit into those changes. Would I be left behind? Looking back, I can see I could have saved myself so much heartache if I embraced the changes and understood that people love me for who I am, not who they think I should be. (And that people who don’t love me for who I am shouldn’t get access to my time and energy!)
18) How did you spend Christmas? I slept in and then spent the morning reading and working on “Best of 2019” blog posts while sipping an iced coffee. I left around noon for my mom’s and we had about an hour to ourselves before my brother and his family arrived. Once they were here, we opened presents (and my younger nephew exclaiming, “I can’t believe this!” every time he opened a present was everything my heart needed) and I got just about everything I asked for – and then some! After that, we had Christmas dinner and then just hung out for a while. I left around 4:30, came home, and gave the girls their presents (my mom bought them this fun ball tower, and Chip “got” them some toys to bat around). Then I took a bubble bath and lazed around for the rest of the evening! It was a good Christmas indeed.
19) What was your favorite TV program? Schitt’s Creek! I’m so glad I discovered that show this year. It has been such a delight.
20) What was the best book you read? The best novel I read this year was Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. The best nonfiction book I read this year was White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo.
21) What did you want and get? I wanted a second kitten and I got her! Have I mentioned lately how much I love Lila and what a perfect addition she has been? She’s such a sweetheart and my little cuddle bug.
I also really wanted to finally have $1,000 saved in an emergency fund and I did it! I have been trying to do this for years. (I’m terrible at finances and saving money.) It feels so good to have this as a buffer in case of emergencies.
22) What did you want and not get? There were a few really cool opportunities that I was hoping would pan out for me, but they didn’t. It was really hard when that happened (especially when they happened multiple times), but that just means they weren’t right for me.
23) What was your favorite film of 2019? I didn’t watch a ton of movies this year (I think, like, five?) but I think my favorite of the few I watched was To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. Such a cute teen rom-com!
24) What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 32 this year and my birthday fell on Thanksgiving! After sleeping in and getting ready for the day, I drove to my mom’s house for the holiday. I helped her with some of the preparations and then my brother and his family came over. We ate a delicious meal and then the whole family sang happy birthday to me! I left my mom’s around five, came home to my kitties, and ate a second helping of mashed potatoes, turkey, and gravy. I didn’t do much that evening – put the finishing touches on my birthday blog post, read Reddit, and went to bed on the early side. It was a good day!
25) What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? If I had embraced the changes that were happening around me, instead of resisting them. I think I would have been a lot happier if I hadn’t spent so much time feeling like these changes meant I was going to be left behind.
26) Who kept you sane? My cats! I’ve always known that pets make life so much better but I don’t think I realized how much until I spent 10 months without pets in 2018. Of course, I was grieving Dutch and I wanted the time to do that. I didn’t want to get a pet to fill a void. But man, now that I have my girls, life is so much better. They’re my little buddies! Right now, as I type up this post, they’re snoozing on the couch next to me. 🙂
27) Who did you miss? I had many, many moments where I really missed Pops. It’s still hard to fathom his loss and it hurts so much to think about never seeing him again.
28) Who was the best new person you met? I don’t think I met any new people this year. Oh! Can I count my friend’s baby here? Meeting her and watching my dear friend as a mom has been such a delight for me.
29) Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2019. Thoughts are not reality. I spent a lot of time in therapy this year talking about the spiraling thoughts I have and how to stop letting those thoughts influence my decisions and how I feel about myself. It’s a hard habit to break, one that has been ingrained in me for years and years. But I’ve learned to take a step back when I have a thought that I know will send me spiraling down a black hole. I think about what evidence I have that supports this thought and what evidence I have that doesn’t support this thought. (99% of the time, there’s no evidence to support my thought.) It’s an immensely helpful exercise and has been a game-changer in the way I view myself and my thoughts.
30) Show us one of your favorite photos from the year. I love this photo of Eloise and Lila, and they were such a big part of my year as I learned how to become a cat mom. It’s been the lock screen on my phone for months now and always makes me happy when I see it!
Share one of your accomplishments of 2019 in the comments! I’d love to hear them. 🙂
I love reading these kind of posts. It reminds you of how much you packed into a year and how much you grew! 2019 was a really lovely year for you. Of course it wasn’t without its challenges, but that’s life. I hope your wish of meeting someone special is answered. I know that feeling of yearning for someone so very badly.
Let’s see… and accomplishment for 2019… the biggest was probably how much I grew the product I’m responsible for at work. We had over $600 million of net inflows which is a pretty big deal! In my personal life, I found acceptance with and appreciation for being a working mom. I spent the last quarter of 2018 questioning if I should be a working mom but I learned in 2019 that I’m not meant to be a SAHM. It’s a relief to figure that out as i’ve invested a lot into my career/education!
Lila’s face in that last pic! So adorable!
I am so glad this year you are happier and learned so much about the how to take care of yourself! That is a big deal! And I think how much writing you got done on your book is a big deal, too 🙂 You are so close!
What do you think you will do to help yourself be the one reaching out more? (this is the opposite of my goal for 2019 – mine was to reach out less. I was in many relationships where I was doing all the initiating and it was draining for me.)
And what do you think you will do to be better with change? That is something almost everyone that I know struggles with!
I hope you have some fun dates in 2020 and find someone to share your wonderful life with 🙂
Our biggest 2019 accomplishment is building most of a garage 😉 I also got some stuff done at work but it’s boring so I won’t share. But I worked my arse off there!
I love this look at your year! Sounds like a really excellent year all around. And your kitties are so adorable!