Dear Reader,

The thought of trying to be excited about things for this year have been rough. The month of December had made me realize that life can be taken away sooner than you realize. It’s hard to think about being happy about anything when you are going through the grieving process of losing a close friend, who helped bring excitement to your otherwise boring life. Not to say that she was the only person who could bring me joy, but she was one of the constant ones inviting you to events and just being an overall joyful presence everytime you would see her. It made me realize that it’s time for me to find something that makes me excited again and not rely on someone to do it for me, or in general, I just become that joyous person loving life. Thus starts with me making plans that will bring me joy.

Recently, I impulsively signed up to participate in a 31 mile walk, jog or run fundraiser for Wounded Veterans in January where you do one mile every day. I remember back in middle school when I was doing cross country and track and how much I loved running. I haven’t done much running since then, but I realized this was the opportunity I needed to get back into it. I got myself a gym membership and I am doing my best to make sure I complete all 31 miles by the end of the month. It’s not easy for me to do because my every day routine consists of me laying in bed until work playing games on my phone or talking with friends, but I am working on making sure I make time to go even if that means doing more miles another day. I am hoping that after I complete this challenge that I will continue to go to the gym or just in general go take a run outside because I love the feeling that I get afterwords.

Besides running, I am challenging myself to not buy so many things I do not need. This will be my biggest struggle because it’s so easy to see something I like and just impulsively buy it because I feel happy about it at the time, but that happiness doesn’t last and I feel compelled to buy something else to feel that happiness again. However looking around my room I see all this clutter of stuff that could have been left at the store and constantly having these thoughts of why did I buy this? Does this really bring me joy? Most of the time it really does not bring me joy, but I like it too much to part with it which is a big problem. With the rising costs of food and living expenses I need to focus on being more decisive on what I am purchasing and make sure it really has a purpose before buying it. With this goal in mind I am hoping to save more so I can plan for life moments that may be a once in a life opportunity instead of having something others also have in their closet.

Speaking of life’s moments, I am excited to see where my relationship is going to go this year. In September of last year, I met my boyfriend. Neither of us were wanting a relationship, but we has this instant connection that we wanted to explore further and felt like we would regret it if we let this pass us by. We became friends first, but it wasn’t long before we decided to start dating and being official. It’s not easy, we don’t live close to each other so seeing each other is hard but we make it work. We are also working on growing as a people alone and together which makes it hard, but neither of us currently had a desire to call it quits. I am hoping we continue to grow and learn together for this year and longer because this is the first relationship that I am not wanting to run away scared when things go bad. I’m taking it head on and hoping this eventually leads to marriage and possibly kids as the end goal this is my this year and future years plans that I will do my best to keep.

I am going to fo my best to work on these goals. These are not just this year goals, they are also future years goals but this is the first year I am going to make an effort to achieve these to my best ability. I will look back on this and hope I made a lot of progress compared to where I am now. I am greatful to my friend for sharing her love of life with me and hope she is cheering me on as I progress through my goals to become more excited about life like she was.