Hello, 2015!

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Well, some how the year has come and gone; we're moving on to bigger and better (hopefully). 

So much happened in 2014, and overall, it was an okay year for me. I know that a lot of people had a pretty bad year. I think that what a lot of people are failing to acknowledge is that there will always be bad days, and we have to choose not to let them all blend together to make a whole year "bad." The way I see it, we have to learn from those moments. The good, the bad, the ugly. 

2014 was a year of change for me. I graduated high-school. I got my drivers license. I started college. I've started to grow up and figure out who I am, and who I want to be. I'm learning that not everything I do is okay, and I have to be willing to change and work on myself. I've learned that not everything that the people you love say and do is okay, either, and it's alright to have different opinions. What's starting to matter to me the most is that I do what God wants me to do, not what people want me to do. 

I thought that today I would share with you some of my 2015 goals. They aren't really "resolutions" and this isn't one of those "New year, New me" posts, because, really, that stuff never works for me. These are the things that I want to focus on working on in myself this year, because it's important to take care of yourself. I'm a work in progress; I always will be. And that's okay. 

This year I want to:

• be less stressed. I want to take time for myself; I want to understand that just because I get a bad grade, the world won't end; I want to always remind myself that my happiness doesn't depend on how well I do on one assignment. It's okay to be okay with less than perfect.
• cry less and laugh more. I want to say "I don't have to let my depression win" and save the tears for the moments when I'm laughing so hard I cry; I want to save the tears for the moments that I'm so in awe of God and his grace that I can't help but sob. I don't want to waste my tears because an illness I have is telling me it's a "bad day." I want to wake up, and look at the sky, and fall so in love with being alive that there is no way the day can be "bad." 
• work on making my body healthy––physically and mentally. I want to remember to drink water and stay hydrated and go to the gym. I also want to remember that mental health is just as important as all of that. I want to remember to read my Bible and listen to music that makes me want to dance and write out every feeling that I can possibly feel. 
• truly learn who I am and who I want and need to be. I want to see myself the way that God sees me. I want to figure out what it means to be Shiloh in every way that I can. I want to learn about my desires and my hopes and my talents. I want to learn to be comfortable in my skin and my mind. 
• take new risks. I want to make new friends and try new things and go on new adventures. I want to spend countless hours at concerts and in the woods and basking in the sun. I want to go to karaoke nights with my friends and I want to join new clubs at school. I want to experience everything that the world has to offer me right now.
• read more. I want to read anything and everything. I want to read more than just crappy fan fictions. I want to read and reread classics, and poetry, and new genres, and old genres, and everything.
• thrive. 

Here's to 2015.

Blessings,

Shi.