We’re in the thick of the January winter. Long, cold, wet days; gray, dreary evenings; dark, windy nights. Today we woke up to 3 inches of snow on the ground – enough to pull out the winter boots to walk the dog through the yard. The sky is gray but there are lovely ribbons of blue and pink on the edges, just enough to make you hopeful that today will be a good day, despite the intense desire to stay in your pajamas and snuggle on the couch.
At the end of December, I reflected a lot about the past year. I mostly just compiled a list of the big things that I did, events that happened, or emotional changes I was going through at the time. As the days slip by and the months pass, it’s easy to think that you’re not doing much. There are more nights of Netflix than there are parties and dates and new experiences. There are more long boring work days than there are exciting weekends of adventure. So it helps me to recap it all. The whole year, events lined up next to each other on a few sheets of notebook paper.
As expected, I didn’t think 2018 was memorable for any singular reason. It felt like a series of little blips, nothing leading up to a grand finale or breakthrough or existential reckoning.
In September of 2018, I decided that I wanted to focus more on me. I was tired of a year that seemed like I was just running in place, doing the same things, working the same job, watching the same TV shows, going on the same walks. I wanted to liven things up. I wanted to check items off a list of things that I’d always wanted to do. I wanted to focus on trying new things, getting out of my comfort zone, and generally just live more intentionally. I called it the Year of Meg. I said, starting September 1, 2018, I’m going to spend the next year doing awesome things and living to my true self. I want to get off social media and stop living vicariously through other people. There’s no reason why Year of Meg had to wait to start in January 2019, I thought. Just start it now. There’s no time like the present.
So I did. In September I took a weekend to take stock of my life and my career. I spent a full day writing down what I was good at, what I liked doing, what my goals were, what my strengths were, where I wanted to go with my career, how I wanted to structure my life and my days. I wrote pages and pages. I found self-reflection questions online and I thought seriously about whether I was in the place that I wanted to be and if not, where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do.
And then, I started to take my new job search seriously. I wrote down a list of companies I thought I’d like to work for, I signed myself up for Glassdoor emails, I updated my resume and my LinkedIn page.
By October, I had a few interviews. By November I had a job offer. By December I was in full swing of not just a new job, but a new career track.
Year of Meg started off strong.
I joined a masters swim team because I remembered that I absolutely love swimming. I took a self-defense class in November and December. I committed to making smoothies for breakfast.
And then after Christmas, I took stock of 2018 and came to a sudden realization. Year of Meg did not start in September. Year of Meg was the whole past 12 months. My breakthrough did happen in those last three months. 2018 was a whole year of learning about myself, growing up, becoming a mentor, traveling, exercising, writing, reading more than ever. What I thought was a nothing-year was actually a slow evolution into the person who could quit their amazing job for an equally amazing job that was more aligned with their personal life. I became the person who jumped headfirst into something I’d never done before and then kept at it, even though it was hard. I became the person who went back to their roots to commit to the things they’d always loved. I didn’t need to start from scratch with my list of who I wanted to be and what I wanted to do. I was almost there, I just needed to define it.
One of the self-reflection questions asked me to write down three words that described the year. I was stumped for a bit on this one. How could I sum up a year of working, traveling, friends and family, adventure, stress and relaxation, into just a word, or three? I didn’t actually have to think that long because it was pretty obvious that my whole year was self-indulgent.
I did cool things all year long. I did everything I wanted to do. I got to travel for work (Corpus Christi, New York, Tucson, Denver, Kansas City). I got to travel with my husband, Jim (Charleston, Salt Lake City, Buffalo, Niagara-on-the-Lake). I got to travel with family and friends (Maryland, Virginia Beach, Las Vegas). Jim and I went to our first Riverhounds soccer game, and we visited museums we’d never been to. I volunteered with my greyhound, Sadie, for Therapets and the Going Home Greyhounds adoption agency. We went to two weddings, one of which was my brother’s. I went white water rafting. I got promoted at work. I hung out with my husband, my best friend, all year long. It was amazing. All that was before I decided I needed a Year of Meg.
This whole year was all about me. Doing new things, doing things I love, having new adventures, traveling, spending time with family and friends.
I thought looking back that all I would see would be the stress of my last job and nights spent in front of screens. But my year was so much more than that. It was a fabulous Year of Meg.
I am now in an incredible place of ease and simplicity. I am in a place to reflect, but also to look forward and figure out how I want to live and be in the long term.
I know there will be more changes and challenges. Life is never stagnant, even if some days feel like that. There may be struggles ahead, and hopefully there will be more joy. But I can go into this year knowing that I don’t need to be so self-indulgent anymore. That I have come a long way already. That maybe, at least in this moment, I have things just a bit more figured out than I thought I did.