I'd toast to this year.

In one year, I've found that I love...

Writing - and I'm really good at it. I love writers, too, and the way I feel when I read the great ones. I love how each writer pulls different thoughts and emotions out of me.
EATING! It's true, and I'll never ever stop for anyone, not now, not ever.
Art - I can hardly describe this - it's looking at a painting and realizing that emotion in the pigments, in the brush strokes, and the delicate ownership the artist took of his masterpiece - are taking my soul and bringing it to the surface of my entire being. It's feeling things I've never felt - the rawness - the shamelessness of it all - it's beautiful. Most of all, it's knowing that someone, hundreds of years before and hundreds of years after, has and will feel the same feeling I felt right at that very moment of standing before that painting.
Laughing - I never did laugh quite as much as I should have.
Being a smarmy little know-it-all - because I really do know it all.
Singing - I love it so dearly, and so tenderly, like an old friend who never truly leaves.
My family - I loved them before, but now I'm discovering WHY I love them - as people - individuals. It's wonderful. They're my best friends.
Painting - I can't describe it. It's just the intricacy - the way that I know that I can make the painting however I want to. The world disappears and suddenly becomes mine.
My places - Borders in Wheaton - Starbucks in Glen Ellyn - they're all mine and no one can change that.
Myself - I really do. I look in the mirror and I see this absolutely stunning young woman. I love who I am and I wouldn't trade that for anything
God - Not because He can do something for me, but because He just is.
Because he's God, and that's all there is. Just God. I love that.

So here's to one year...
1 year of broken hearts, shattered dreams, being empty, lost and naked - being scared, vulnerable and confused. Being bitter, angry and apathetic. Being loved, broken, and healed. Here's to being awed and shaken and humbled. To laughing so hard I cry, and crying so hard I laugh. Here's to friends who'll drive home the week before finals to make sure you're ok and a family who loves you enough to put you back on the bike and give you a big push. Here's to being new - whole - filled. Here's to realizing. Here's to letting go.

And here's to being free.

I'm free.