Wednesday, January 1, 2014

2013, Part 1.

The beauty of the new year is that we all start it together.
We all start with a fresh hope of becoming our truer, shinier, more beautiful human selves.
And if you are lucky enough to have friends like mine, we celebrate those hopes knowing that, if next December rolls around and we didn't quite hit our marks, we'll still love each other anyway.

The beauty of a new year is that we take time to reflect on the  past. For me, 2013 was a great year. Yes, I had some dark moments, but overall, I became more conscious of myself and who I am and who I am trying to be. I learned so much about my strengths, my weaknesses, and in a big way, my limits. Those insights inspired actions that looked crazy but that moved me slowly closer to where I want to be.

And where I want to be is happy. 

Here's what my first half of 2013 looked like. (Yes, I 'll have to do this obligatory summing-up-of-the-old-year in two posts//yes I should have done it in December but, meh). I promise I'll get around to the other obligatory goals-for-the-new-year by the end of the week (I'll give you a hint, blogging more is one of them).


January

I rang in 2013 with a midnight yoga class. It was stellar, but sort of started a sleep-deprivation trend that I kept up for most of the entire year.

Later that month, I celebrated my 24th birthday with my best girls that I've known for basically forever.

duck face!


We closed out a bar, waited way too long for a taxi (outside, in January, in Colorado, in dresses, without tights). And then "amused"our taxi driver with our fifteen-minute rendition of a Red Robin commercial.

Red Robin...YUMMMM.

It ended in hilarity in my apartment.
I made pancakes for everyone the next morning.

February

I don't remember much of February, because this was the month that I actively considered suicide (remember those dark moments I mentioned above?). Thankfully, my friend Andy (shout out!) talked me off the proverbial ledge with 49% empathetic understanding and 49% blunt honesty. The other 2% was my own concern for the emotional health of whoever discovered my body.

Plus, let'sbehonesthere, I didn't really want to miss out on the rest of my life.  I've got a long bucket list, and I haven't gotten to nearly enough of it. It seems bizarre now to think of myself as that so sad girl. But! The only way to go from there was up...

March

I went blonde! Hollahatyergurl!

Since I didn't want to live my life the way it was going, I decided to reinvent myself, starting with my hair. I highly recommend this as therapy. I felt like an elf, elves are awesome, and I didn't recognize myself when I looked in the mirror That was a good thing.

I also hung out with my cat.


Like, a lot.
#inappropriate!

April

I quit my job. In the middle of a recession. This was the first of the crazy decisions. And it was the best decision I've made in my life thus far. I was burnt out, and I didn't feel like I was making a difference in anyone else's life.

I want to make a difference. It's my biggest goal in life.

Last day with some of the amazing ragamuffin Urban crowd.

I celebrated that evening with ferrets. (What?)

I went to a Spring Rockies game with my dad. This may seem inconsequential, but I'm really trying to bond with him to make up for a decade or so where we hated each other a little bit (#puberty).

Aw. That's where I get my cheeks.

And I started the Whole30 Paleo cleanse. 30 days of eating nothing except nuts, fruits, seeds, vegetables, and meat. No sugar (anywhere; like, not even ketchup), no alcohol, no grains, no starches, no dairy.

But, I was doing it for the wrong reasons. I've always struggled with body image and my relationship with chocolate food. I wanted to lose weight and thought (ignorantly), that cutting everything out was the best way to do so. But, actually, all it did was ensure that I relapsed into bulimia. I couldn't keep up the elimination diet, and so I purged myself of the restricted foods I did eat. I love the idea behind Whole30, but for most people, it's not a sustainable lifestyle, and (I would argue), simply perpetuates disordered eating.

What I should have been focusing on is this:
Chyeah. Say it again!

May

You guys know about May.  That's when I started this blog, after all! I went to Europe with my brother, and we had a grand time.  You can read all about it, here, here, or here. (There's more posts, but writing "here" six times seemed excessive, so you'll have to find them yourselves).

I also drove around Colorado on my funemployment, visiting my best friends.

 This is Andy, he saved my life.

Cinco-de-mustache, obvi.

And I went to Vegas with mah girls.

The guy on the left was in a group of men from London that let us share their table service.
We drank rounds of Dom Perignon.
It was a $15,000 bar tab. 
Thanks!


It was amazing.

Memories are a little blurry, but we were clearly having a great time.

June

After a month of living the life of a faux-trust-fund child and traveling to Europe, Las Vegas, and most of Colorado, I decided to start paying taxes again. So I started nannying.

For these crazies.

I also started yoga teacher training. Because when you're a twenty-something who quits a socially acceptable, successful career and yoga is the only reason you put on pants for most of the month of May, it seems like a great idea. And it was.

But it was a busy June, July, &August. Weekly, yoga TT was nine hours of training, five hours of practice, and I had three hours of cleaning the studio (plus about 10 hours/week of showering). This was fit around my 40 hours of nannying, my second 15-hour/week retail job, and my time with my friends (and my cat). I was on FIRE. 

The only thing I wasn't doing was sleeping. And by August, I crashed. Hard. Which, incidentally, is what led me to be writing this post from my old bedroom in my parents' basement. 

But, that's getting ahead of myself. July-December are coming atchya. Promise.

For now, Happy New Year, y'all.

:)

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