i can’t not just acknowledge this past year. i can’t ignore an entire 365 days that were spent: crying, learning, laughing, kneeling, puffing up my chest. i can’t overlook the days where i danced until my feet hurt. when i threw back shots and had not a care in the world. the days that were carefree and full of airiness. i also can’t side step the days where it felt like the loneliness was going to suffocate me. the days when no one would call me. the three days i spent in the hospital and i still believe that was because of a broken heart. no one can tell me different. the days where i felt betrayal from those who vowed to never leave. i watched those very souls shut the door in my infinite time of need. i also can’t forget the day i promised to myself that God created my solitude as a canvas for my soul. I repeated mantra’s and quit job(s) that were making me miserable. I also talked to my mom a lot and allowed her wisdom to pour into me. she told me that all her hopes for me were that I would be a woman unto my own - no matter what that meant, and I swallowed that. I drank it in and come May, it felt like there was finally a light at the end of a thoughtless tunnel. An entire half of a year almost erased, as if God was showing me that second chances aren’t just the stuff of stories. My heart opened up again, and things felt so right. Divinely ordered moments are so hard to come by, but I felt like my happiness was one of them in that time. With my misery came a marriage of peace within myself that I only dreamed about. I was able to imagine again, and laugh and never feel bad for the space I occupied. I managed the fuck out of myself and for that, I am thankful. I truly think that 2015 was the year i went from a hopeful, whimsical girl to a matured, realistic, passionate and dope as fuck woman. and how could i not document that transition? 2015 wasn’t just a years worth of growth, but a lifetime. Never in my 23 years - not a hurricane, not moving over 10 times, not the ending of a 6 year love affair, never once did anything in my life shake me to my core like the past year has and if the result is this settling into myself… this ease, the maturity, this indestructibility, this strength, this zeal, this determination, this ambition, this full heart is the result? well, then so be it.