Simple | 2016

Todd & I driving home from Terrace, BC January 1st, 2016.

The best gift I could have given myself this year was an extra week off before I get back into work. So I have a chance to write for the first time in a long time. I am curled up on my couch, sipping on coffee and watching the beautiful January snow fall like icing sugar over the city. It is a precious feeling to have so many exciting dreams, plans and hopes for the year.

I don't think I could have asked for a better start to a new year. Road trips, rest and the building of stronger bonds and connections with my family and my newly expanded family connections with my boyfriend's family. On the drive home, Todd and I talked about our hopes and plans for this new year. Both individually, as a couple, and our hopes for each other as well.

My boyfriend is back in university this year to start is Computer Science degree, so that will be a change for us. I'm excited for him, but I know it is going to be a lot of work for him, taking his classes and working at the same time. I know that we will find a balance that works and I will do what I can to help ease the adjustment in. There is a piece of me that is a little envious of him being back in school. Haha! I texted him this morning and said that I wished I was there taking the classes with him, as I was gingerly making my way in the snow to pick up a delayed Christmas gift.

My thoughts on the new year...on this year ahead really...are that I want to keep things simple. I want to keep my goals simple, I want to keep my steps simple and I want to continue to build on everything that I have learned to date. This will require leaning harder, pushing harder and diving deeper into one primary goal, and letting go of some extra things in my life that are, for this point in time, just adding to general busyness instead of giving something back. I will likely take them on again, but this year, I am claiming as a year off from extras. I am distilling even further to get more into my core and take every day captive.

It sounds a bit selfish saying that. That I want return on investment for my efforts. But I believe that it is really only being fair to myself. If I feel that I am making myself busy for the sake of doing something, and am not really invested in it in such a way that myself and others will benefit at this time. Now feels like a good time to take a step back and let someone else take on that role. In order to grasp something with one of our hands, we have to let something else go. Balance. Making time for both our dreams and our purpose takes care and attention.

I think I believe that I have more capacity than I do at times. So, for 2016, I want to take a simplified approach. I want to get things done more, and have less of a never ending to do list...or a calendar that makes me sigh more than celebrate. I want to be fed this year. I want more adventure, more time for coffee and connection and art. Lots of more time for art and crafting and honing my precious skills and abilities. I want to immerse myself in the things that make me want to click my heels and get up to my elbows in work that feels deeply worth while. I want to show up more and talk less. I want less over-complication, anxiousness, assumption, coping, emotional bracing or mindless consumption. I want to be mindful, soul filled and heart that is first satisfied and fully fed, in order to generously and with a heart of gratitude, give back to others.

So, I want to keep things simple. I want to give rest, peace and stillness a chance to have their voice this year. I want more time in nature to just be and explore. I want more sunrises, sunsets and starlit nights. I want to unplug from the extraneous things and plug into the extraordinary moments ahead.

2015 was chock a block with great memories and difficult ones. Just as every year. My greatest complaint was that is absolutely flew by. So I want to treasure my days more and be more of a treasure to those who mean so much to me.

It sounds simple, but doing this makes my heart leap. I am so thankful to have a man in my life who goal is to make me smile every day and to encourage me to be myself and reach for my goals. I am also thankful to myself, for working, questioning, challenging, expanding, taking hold of and reaching out towards new opportunities. There is so much good to come. So many exciting ways to grow, test my skills and to expand how I see myself and the world.

So here is to keeping it simple in 2016. Here is to drawing ever nearer to what I truly want to invest my time in and spend my time on. Here is to making spaces to work within and breath within. Here is to having healthy functional, relational and ever refined boundaries with myself and others.

Cheers!