i can’t believe it is already 2016. you have probably uttered those exact words a few times yourself. it really seems like the days are flying by. i personally can’t decide if i’m okay with this or if i want the ability to make time stand still. sometimes you just need a moment to catch your breath!
but here we are, in 2016, with a year full of promise and potential ahead of us. i have so many intentions for this year. there are things i want to learn, things i want to do, and places i want to visit. you have heard me talk about my 3 to try, 3 to learn list before. it’s my way of setting goals for the year to improve myself. in the past, i’ve made some pretty ambitious lists, and most times i was able to cross those things off. this year, i’ve really been thinking about my overwhelming need to cross things off my list. see, i’m a doer and doers like to do! that means we make little lists of things and work to knock out those lists. there is nothing wrong with this per se. i just noticed over the last few months that i don’t want my life to be a collection of check marks. i did this. i learned that. i went there.
don’t get me wrong, 2015 was pretty amazeballs as far as years go. i traveled every single month in 2015, sometimes more than once a month. i presented at conferences, mentored some pretty dope young ladies, traveled to two countries and one u.s. territory, camped in the great outdoors, interviewed oprah and ava duvernay, cosplayed at dragon con with my bestie (i as wonder woman her as super girl, both of us badass!), surfed a sand dune, added new veggies to my garden, hiked throughout washington, and a host of other things i’m forgetting.
i also buried my grandmama, grieved the loss of more black and brown youth, wrestled with calls for respectability in the face of gross injustice, experienced the loss of a relationship i valued, worked too damn much, failed to complete my book, and spent many nights crying myself to sleep.
that’s the thing about life – a lot can happen in twelve months and not all of it is pretty. you have to have valleys in order to have peaks. as i walked through some of my valleys in 2015, i was blown away by all the ways people in my life loved on me. i also marveled at the number of people who celebrated with me as i reached mountain tops. throughout 2015 i was reminded that i both needed people and was surrounded by people who wanted to be in my life.
it’s not that i didn’t have this before. but when you’re focused on checking things off your list, it is all too easy to miss the moments, the life, that happens as you’re working. you look up and wonder how in the world did i get here? how did we get here? it’s not a good feeling.
time is going to pass no matter what, so why not decide to be present? in 2016, i absolutely want to try new things, learn new things. i have no issues with dreaming big. you should probably know that about me. i dream as if there are infinite possibilities because there are infinite possibilities! you can live with limits if you want (i don’t recommend it), but i’m a daughter of the Most High which means there are no limits on me! that said, i have some pretty big expectations for my life this year. what i refuse to do is miss the journey of getting there.
when we come to the end of 2016 (you should also know i plan to live to celebrate my hundred and eleventeenth birthday so i plan to be around for a while), i won’t be looking up in shock saying how did we get here. instead, i’ll be able to recount every moment and all the feels connected to them. afterall, that’s what life is all about!
