31 Years Later
I spent the better part of the last year embracing the fact that I was finally turning 30 and entering a new decade of life. 30 years is a long time and when you look back on everything you’ve accomplished it makes you glad you had the life you’ve been given. In this past year I’ve suffered great loss, experienced great pain, but I’ve also seen great blessings. My life is an absolutely, incredible story and telling that story is such a privilege.
You see, I decided 30 was going to be about growing spiritually. I’ve found that in my lifetime a person can grow in many ways and we often neglect parts of our own growth and it’s critical that we remember two things:
We are champions of our growth.
Growth can be good or bad or both.
In the interim, we have to assess our life and decide how we want to live that life—our best life.
I learned a lot about friendships this year—and as per Mr. Feeney—when the integrity of a friendship has been breached even the strongest friendship can unravel. I’ve found that friendships are like living breathing ecosystems. They are delicate and you must nurture them just as you would any other living being. If left to their own devices, they could wither and die. A couple of years ago, I found myself watching as one of the most important friendships I had start to die and as painful as that was, God put other plans into motion to help me cope with that loss.
I am the most logical person I know, and logic dictates that people should not allow their joy to be dependent on any other person but rather our joy should be founded on our terms. I found that in relating this friendship to other friendships I was not in control. Our lives, while lived by us are directed by God. He saw fit to remove this friendship from my life so that he could grow it into something bigger and better and from the ashes of that old friendship came something even better. A friendship that is nearly 10 years in the making is stronger than ever before and I am beyond grateful for that. Good friends are hard to come by, great friends are rare, and best friends are exceptionally rare. My charge to you, cherish your friendships, they may not be around forever.
I learned a lot about finances this year—I learned that you can’t live your absolute best life unless you are financially free. So this year I embarked on a journey to clear away my debt. There was a time in my life when I thought that credit cards meant free money. And while there’s a blog post at some point down the road about the woes of credit cards, this one, however, is not. So, to start this journey, I made a plan to pay off my debt and I am pleased to say that I am well on my way to making that goal a reality. Fiscal responsibility is one of the most important things to me and it has to start at home.
Finally, I learned that life goes on with or without you. You don’t live until you decide to live. And when you decide to live you are free to experience life the way it was meant to be experienced. I think in this next year I’m going to find out what is truly important to me and chase after it. Life has a way of taking us on turns that we can never expect, but wherever it takes you remember to be true to yourself—trust your gut and live fully.
Here’s to 31.