End of the year wrap up

     "I will not lay myself down to die when I go to my grave my head will be high"

If you know me at all you know that I am thoroughly obsessed with this quote and the film that it comes from. I didn't know where to start, or where to go, or exactly what it is that I wanted to say in this last blog for the year, so I figured why not start from a place of comfort. I've been so wrapped up in reality that I've failed to take a moment to reflect. As I look back at this year, at the many different categories and facets of life that make up who I am, I must say it has been interesting to say the least.  As I get further and further away from college life, and deeper into my career as a teacher and closer to who I  am as a writer I've noticed a great change in my values and expectations. When I started this blog over two years ago I was a mere college graduate looking for direction, and this blog served as a ranting space. Then I looked back at the writing from the beginning of this very year and I believe I was still in that same head space, preoccupied with an endless search, tormented by the failures in my past, and just harboring this detrimental anger.  Self destruction at best my teaching and writing began to suffer at the cause of my own hand until the unimportant things stopped being important.

With re-evaluation and adjusted focus I stopped worrying about the appearance of my reality and starting being an active participant in the life I wanted to live. I stopped thinking of teaching as a job and actually fell in love with what it is that I do. I stopped being afraid of sounding just average in my writing and was able to just pour every part of me into words. My insecurities, my fears, my pain, my joy all surfaced beautifully into some of the greatest writing I've done so far.  But most importantly I was able to avoid the insane loop that we often fall into by trying to mold and shape those we care about into becoming what it is that we want them to be. This was my most difficult accomplishment as I've always connected acceptance with failure. I learned that accepting those that you love sometimes means loving them from a distance so you both can live in peace. Acceptance isn't giving up, it is a mature decision to aid you filter those that you must maintain and sustain, and those you must wish well.

Overall I can't say 2012 was my year, or that it was the best year I've ever lived but I did learn and I did grow and in the end thats all that matters. There was good, there was bad, there were tests I had to take, barriers I had to overcome but in the end I am here. Progression is the key and all I can wish for is to keep progressing towards a better version of who I already am. Not a different version, not a new version… just better.

Happy New Year Everyone!
MJB