The Wint'ry Day, Descending to It's Close

Well here we are, mere hours away from New Year's Eve. Thinking back on this year in review, 2011 was an awesome year for me.

I had a few 'A's show up on my transcript. I worked at a summer internship that I found difficult and rewarding, and I learned SO MUCH, and now I'm crossing my fingers that it will turn into a job. I became an aunt x3 in July when my adorable niece-let was born.

Kindly disregard her shirt. She loves her aunt LINDSEY the most.

I went to Washington D.C. for the first time in March. I went to my friend Kathy's wedding reception in July. I felt a chapter of my life close as I watched the last Harry Potter movie (I read the first book in 7th grade.) I fulfilled a major lifelong dream when I moved to France in the fall and lived there for three and a half months. 

I celebrated my sister getting engaged, and am currently planning her bridal shower in March, and wedding in April. I rejoiced as I had  record numbers of friends get engaged or pregnant within a two month period. Babies and weddings to come, and I am so happy for all of them! (and am certainly going to try and attend a few of the weddings at least.)

Now I am at home where I celebrated Christmas with the fam, and next week, I head back to Vermont for my LAST SEMESTER of law school.

Time flies when you're doing hard things. I am very happily content with my life and the way things have turned out. Things have not been perfect, not everything has turned out the way I had planned. I've learned to pick myself up, clean off the scrapes on my knees, and keep on going. Wounds heal, and life has turned out so well so far.

I have a good life. As I start making plans for 2012 I am, of course, not entirely certain what my future holds. Will I get the job I want? Will my plans work out the way I want? Will things fall through? Will there be last minute changes? Will times get tough? Of course they'll get tough, and nothing is going to go 100% as planned, but I feel a certain sense of calm heading into the end of law school that I did not feel while nearing the finish line of college in December of 2007. I feel more willing to accept that I cannot control everything and that is okay.

I hope you all have good lives too. I hope you fulfilled a few dreams this year. I hope those dreams turned out to be more wonderful and difficult and rewarding than you realized. I hope you're excited for 2012. I hope you know that even if things don't go as planned, if you put your trust in the Lord, they will turn out just fine, and in fact, even better than anything you could plan on your own. He has band-aids and Neosporin for those scraped knees.

I hope that if you feel like your life isn't going well that you will know that it will get better. If you don't believe me, email me. Lets talk. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help. You aren't alone. The Lord loves you, and because you're a child of God, I love you too. So let me be your friend. I have a few band-aids too.

Happy New Year everyone.