goodbye, twenty fourteen.

Twenty fourteen has been the most turbulent, eye-opening, joyful year of my life. To use the cliché, "it was a roller coaster" would be so unbelievably accurate. I started the year in a completely different place than I am now. I'm so different, I can barely recognize myself, but looking back on my goodbye to twenty thirteen and the he + she breakdown, I remember the hopeful girl who wanted twenty fourteen to be a year of growth and change, and man, she got her wish in both happy and sad ways. I began the year as a girl in a loving relationship, hopeful for an end to long distance (I cringe at the he + she post now because I am so not that girl anymore), but instead it just ended altogether. I began the year as a nanny, knowing that I would probably start to apply to teaching jobs again in the summer, and then my life totally changed, I realized what I want to do in this life, and I did it, leaving nannying behind, one of the hardest things I did this year. Amidst the craziness was every day life, and every day life was good:

// I documented my entire year using the project life system, and it was amazing. I'm so pumped that I have this huge album to look back on all of the tiny things that happened this year, and I plan on doing it again this coming year.
// I spent what I know (positive this time, guys) will be my last year at home with my parents, and though some days they drive me nuts, it's been a good year.
// I landed my dream job at BuzzFeed, and decided with certainty that writing is what I want to do with my life, and it will be the core of everything I do from now on, presumably.
// I had another great concert year: The Script + One Republic, One Direction, Ed Sheeran, and The Script again, for free!
// Though the year in blogging didn't go exactly as I had planned (I still have 13 followers on bloglovin' doesn't look like that's changing anytime soon), I still feel really connected to this little internet space, and feel excited about its future. I'm thinking of a makeover, some new features, and a bunch of little tweaks on how I do things from now on.
// I went to six countries in two weeks, California for the first time, and went on a bunch of local trips in between.
// I set a goal to do 25 things in my 25th year, and because I'm a March baby, most of the completed items happened this year, and I still have a couple months left to complete as much as I can. It was a fun project, not necessarily the type of thing I'd be upset over not completing, but a good way to keep small goals ingrained in the things I do all year.
// I didn't exactly keep up with grow, my one little word for the year, in the ways of the album, I definitely did some growing this year. While I feel that I may be a little too busy for OLW in the formal sense (album and monthly updates) this year, I still want to pick a word and execute it in another way on my blog, a way that is more attainable and easy to keep up with.

My most important takeaway from this year is most certainly that while there were highs and lows, I am still here, I'm still motivated, and I still feel that fire under me, encouraging me to do more, be more, and love more. That being said though, I am more than happy to be kicking this year to the curb and starting fresh. Goodbye, twenty fourteen, and hello, twenty fifteen, you beautiful thing, you.