One Little Word: 2014

At the end of last year, I sat in my office staring out the window with tears running down my face and typed this post about how I was going to revisit my word from 2012 in 2013. After several miserable months of feeling like my world was falling apart, I planned to spend a lot of time focusing on putting myself back together. On finding myself and rediscovering who I was again. 

2013 wasn't exactly the year I had hoped for. The year started out rocky, my relationship was a mess for the better part of half the year, we had a horrible situation to deal with in my extended family, we lost our dog in late October, I lost a dear friend to cancer and my MIL was just released from the hospital the night before last. 

Through that all however, over these last 6 months I have begun to find myself again. I discovered that in order to survive the mess that my relationship was turning into, I had to stop focusing on what wasn't working, and what was broken, and start focusing on me. I had to start looking at my contributions to it and what I could be doing to make things better. It wasn't easy, and it's a recommitment that I have to make every single day and sometimes more than once a day, but it has made such a difference. Right now, we are in a much better place than we have been in a long time, moving forward and upward and I thank God every day for giving me the strength to stick it out. 

I discovered things about myself that I didn't feel positively about, and I have been working on changing them. Again, this hasn't been an easy process, and sometimes I slide backwards, but I apologize and move forward. I have spent a lot of time thinking about who I want to be, and how I want to be, and I"m still working on it. I will continue with this in 2014. 

Looking forward however, what I want from 2014 is for it to be a year of restoration. 

Restoration: noun- 1. the act or process of returning something to it's original condition by repairing it, cleaning it, etc. 2. the act of bringing back something that existed before 3. the act of returning something that was stolen or taken

I want to keep working on moving my marriage forward into what looks to be something better than it's ever been before. I have been working on changing me and in the process of not focusing on him, he has taken it upon himself to do better. To look at himself and see what needed doing. We are both doing our best and I am hoping that 2014 can be a year for our relationship to thrive. We haven't had a good relationship in a long, long time. 

I want to keep working on finding myself. I have started college, I am working on starting a plan for what I want to do with my future and through the process of rehabbing my knee so that I can start running again, I'm making my whole self stronger. 

So what I want from 2014, is restoration. I feel hopeful that I will be able to get to the end of next year, and have achieved this goal.