New Year’s Eve, it snowed. The entire weekend following, it snowed. Not so much snow that you couldn’t go out, but just enough to make you kind of not want to.
Somehow I think it was nature’s way of saying, if you don’t take some time out to reflect on the year that’s just passed, and the one that is now beginning, I’ll make you. And she can do that, you see.
Two thousand and nine. Hmm.
I’m not really one for wrap-up posts. You may have noticed how my wedding recaps have dwindled to nothing (I do intend to finish them though, I assure you). But 2009 was, by all measures, the single biggest year of my life. I think I owe it at least a brief summary. After all, it was the year that I…
1. Was engaged. Not the year that I got engaged, but the year that I was engaged. And not just engaged, but planning my entire wedding. Which was a feat unto itself. But, what can I say about being engaged? It was an often strange period of flux, where a significant transition, the one between “single” life and married life, is marked with a diamond ring and is celebrated. Where your entire focus shifts toward one day of your life that was, for me, nine months in the future. It took some getting used to, and by the time I did, the wedding day was upon us. But I will say this: being engaged brought our circle of family and friends closer together than they’ve ever been before. And that was a wonderful thing.
2. Got married. On a warm day in September. To my high school crush and the absolute love of my life. In my favorite city. In a beautiful old theater. Reciting the words we had written for each other. Then smiling and dancing the night away. Everything wasn’t perfect, but it was the perfect day.
3. Bought a house and moved. Something that makes you feel far more grown up than getting married does, let me tell you. But it is so lovely to have a home to call, well, home.
4. Quit my job to follow my dream of following my dream. My dream of living an authentic life. I still feel like I’m flying a bit blind but I’m excited to see where I’ll end up.
It was also the year that started seeing a wonderful therapist and learned an incredible amount about myself. Not only about my weaknesses, but about my strengths. It was the year that I tapped in to my own inner courage, and my own truth.
But as big and as wonderful as 2009 was (that’s not even counting the engagement session, my trip to San Francisco for the first time, or the honeymoon), I’m looking forward to perhaps a calmer, more settled 2010.
Or that’s the goal, at least.
Someone could have told me it snows this often before I moved out here without any boots.