Bungee jumping sounds like a terrible idea.

This year, I’m trying to try new things.  And some new old things.  I’ve never really been afraid of new things.  I would try any food once, I won’t back down from a challenge, I’m always up for an adventure, I moved to new places a lot and was frequently the new kid as a result.  But last year, I really got kinda down as the year went on and I started realizing I needed a reset button.  Since I’m not good at keeping resolutions, I decided to challenge myself.  I like challenges.  So in order to get this new year started in the way I wanted to, I made a jumbled glob of thoughts.  I want to try some new things and retry some old things.  I want to push myself more this year.  That said, I still hate heights and refuse to fall out of an airplane.  No bungee jumping, no skydiving, no elevators…

However, I want to be more optimistic and generally positive.  Last year I gave up on optimism and positivity to an extent and I really want to work on getting that back.

I’m trying to leave last year’s garbage in last year.  I’m doing well with that so far, but I’m realizing I’m digging up garbage from more than a year ago and that really isn’t helping anything and sorta ruins the whole positivity vibe I’m trying to get going.  However, it can be really hard and really painful to let go of people who were only meant for a certain season of your life.  I like knowing what’s going on.  I like knowing how things work.  It’s hard to say yes and go along when I can’t see the bigger picture.

So I’m trying to be more patient.  I’m pretty sure I’ve challenged myself to do this every year since I was five or six and my dad started calling me Patience which would only further irritate me and add more stress to the overall situation.  Seeing as it hasn’t worked so far, I’ve decided to try harder.  Being actively aware of what’s bothering me and why has been the first main step.  It’s a work in progress.

One of the hardest things I’ve decided to work on this year has been trust.  The past several years, trust has been a thing that I’ve been overly generous with.  I would invest my trust in people who I just shouldn’t have.  It wasn’t a good idea and unfortunately, I wasn’t able to see that until after the fact.  This year, I’m trying to be more cautious with my trust without shutting down entirely.  Rather than jumping from one extreme to the next, I’m trying to stay in that middle area because sometimes it’s good to be average.

For the first time in a very long time, I can confidently say that this year is off to a good start because I finally have a group of friends that I can actually depend on.  I’m becoming steadily more independent and outgoing which I wasn’t sure would ever happen.  I’m afraid to admit it, but my life is actually stable for the first time since I don’t know when.  I’ve got two amazing jobs, the best work teams around, solid friends, some kind of crazy cool family, and a vague sense of peace.  I kinda know what I want my life to look like in ten years and what it’s going to generally take to get there.  I’m not as scared about everything as I was six months ago.  Life’s got a few chaotic spots right now but I’m so much happier than I was and I’m kinda just rolling with everything.

I think the one thing 2016 taught me was how to relax.  I spent some time taking long drives to breathe and that taught me more than I expected.  I learned my way around my current hometown that I’m learning to love, I learned that singing loudly while driving through fields can be really good therapy, I learned that spontaneous photography is definitely my favorite, and I learned that life is more fun with friends and way too fun to be spent not having fun when you can.

I found my cozy corner in photography throughout 2016.  Flowers have made me happy for as long as I can remember and I never pass up an opportunity to take a picture of a flower.  That’s not my corner though.  I love taking day trips to bigger cities to capture both the huge buildings and tiny shops.  That’s not really my corner either though.  My corner has been pulling out my camera at random moments and catching the moment as it happens.  That might be the sunset, it might be my friends, it might be something random and small that no one else notices that happens to catch my eye.  I love the truly candid moments of my life.  I love making people laugh just so I can see them smile and capture that moment forever.  I love consciously taking the time to stop at take a picture of something.

Writing can still be hard for me.  Not really because I’m worried about what people think. I guess most of the struggle comes from the way my brain works.  It’s not a bad thing, it just makes it hard for me to say what I want to say the way I want to say it.  I might also have overly specific requirements for each of my posts.

It’s all good.  2017’s gonna be good.