The Best Year of My Life: 2016 | Olivia J

"The book that will most change your life is the book you write," -Seth Godin

2015 Wrap-Up

Everyone likes to bitch about how 2016 was the actual worst. And, I'll admit, some bad things happened in 2016 in general. Civil and global unrest, a shocking amount of celebrity deaths, and the circus that was the 2016 POTUS race. 

But I cannot join in the bitching, because 2016 has been the best year of my life. 

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Sure, some bad things happened to me in 2016, because life is a mixed bag. But they're not worth mentioning, because the past is in the past. (If someone starts singing Frozen, I will resurrect Harambe to come and kill you.)

In 2016, I have learned not just to survive, but to live. This has been a year of new experiences, adventures, making new relationships, and constantly learning and constantly breaking down the self to make God even more the center of my world. 

~

On to the fantastic things of 2016!

I student-directed a play.

Adam Young made the best writing music ever.

My artwork was on a t-shirt. 

My writing and art was accepted into an art show.

I fell in love with Georgia.

I have rekindled my love for dancing via this year's homecoming. 

I discovered that football games are best when you have adventurous friends and someone to cheer for.

I took and passed my first college course, along with finding a glorious schedule of partial homeschooling.

I found great friends who will go on adventures with me.

Shoutout to my other great friends who I have grown infinitely closer to. 

I got to play the sensual, too-fun-for-my-own-good Mrs. Potiphar. 

I started a new novel after over a year of edits and beta readers.

I found the worst kind of breakups are the ones where you still like each other. 

And so many other things that I'm surely forgetting, because all of the good things that happened this year could never fit in one blog post.  

This year was bad and it was good and it was spectacular. And it was life. 

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The most important thing I learned is that life is good. Life can always be good, even when relationships end, even when I can't write a single damn word, even when the stress of school, of everything leaves me crying on the floor.

But I tell it to myself because I know it in my heart of hearts to be true.

The past few years, 2013-2015 in particular, were every hard for me for reasons that I will keep private. In short, middle school and my freshman year of high school sucked. 

And the first part of my sophomore year was me pulling myself out of that, and the last section of me "finding myself". 

Throughout my entire life, I've never thought 'life' - or my life - was good. Life was okay, life was terrible, life was survivable. 

It's just this year that I've found that life is good - and life can always be good - no matter my circumstances no matter anything because God is the constant - my constant -  the axis on which everything else spins.

By that alone, I know that life can always be good. 

~

So my only prayer is that I let go of 2016, and never hold onto the past. I give 2017 over to God, so He can take me from glory to glory to glory, just like He always has. 

I'm going to stop now, because I could literally go on forever about how great 2016 has been. 

So, fellow writers and readers of my blog, write like you're running out of time, because it's another year down in the endless infinity of life. 

~The WordShaker