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2014 was the best year of my life. my dreams lined up to meet me this year, and i took them in hungrily and happily. i watched my life become something i always wished it would be. it was beautiful and fast and precious and full of feeling. it was everything i hoped for.

i carry memories of this year with me  like little snowglobes. they are delicate and they are perfect, and somehow i can watch them from the palm of my hand. even my most challenging moments are kept inside orbs of rose-colored glass, and i take responsibility for that. my life's mission statement is to take a conscious effort to find and make beauty, and this year i got it right. mostly.

my memories are idealized, sure, but not only in retrospect. i loved that morning commute down pennsylvania avenue, the city hustle, the 2am green line anxiety. i loved the soviet concrete jungle, the mashed potatoes, the dusty stairs of the school on taikos gatve. and i loved the loneliness of provo, the late nights in the library, the stress of planning for adulthood, and the distance of phone calls from indiana. and by that i mean, i loved it as much as i could. i loved it while i hated it. i tried my best to be grateful, and gratitude turned the year golden.

2014 was also a tremendous struggle for me. i sunk. i made mistakes. i broke habits. god and i became strangers. i didn't know what i wanted, or if i really had the strength others had seen in me for so long. i wondered if all my faithful fervor had been an illusion. i wondered if i wasn't worthy.

i never knew that experiences like this could happen simultaneously. i never knew that my mind and my confidence and my passions and plans could soar so high while my heart and my faith and my trust and diligence could sink so low. i was a canyon of a girl.

luckily, 2014 was also a year of reunion. i said hello to familiar hearts behind new faces and i said welcome home to parts of my heart that have long been living in other chests. my love came back to me. and it healed me. and god did, too.

and now, with new, i feel resolve. i'm ready, you know? i started 2015 with my first ever new year's kiss, and with the first time in a very long time that i have chosen to be vulnerable. it was a good start. i hope that 2015 brings more adventure, more realized dreams, and more important lines on my resume. but my greatest desire and my heartfelt resolution is to live it with bravery, kindness, and honesty. and most of all, to live it in the presence of god.