The Ninety Twelve

How I Survived Last Year

Confession: I have this thing I do where I don’t celebrate the New Year with everyone else. Instead, I’ve decided my New Year to be my birthday. It just makes sense considering that my birthday is in July so I kinda get a mid year reset. More recently, I’ve started choosing a word to define my year. Last year, it was execution. According to Google, execution has two definitions; the first being “the act of completing, implementing, or putting a plan, order, or artistic piece into effect. It describes the style, technique, or manner in which a task is performed.” This would mean I needed a plan – and a good one.

The second definition of execution is not so cutesy: “The fulfillment or administration of a legal penalty, most notably inflicting capital punishment (the death penalty). In civil law, it refers to the formal process of validating a contract or enforcing a court judgment against a debtor.” There is a version of me that must die in order for the vision of the woman I want to become to be born into the physical world. I would be lying terribly if I told you I stuck to the plan I made this time last year. But more often than not, I was aware of when I was off track.

Becoming an executioner is easy only for a robot…or sociopath. I happen to be human with emotions that fluctuate and insecurities that try to take over. Letting go of the version of me that helped me to survive was and is difficult. Not everything about her is bad; some things just no longer serve me. I am no longer in survival mode trying to figure out what’s next.

Not to toot my own horn, but this year I read more books than the year before. I left toxic relationships. I got baptized. I read the whole Bible cover to cover in 99 days. I rebuilt my relationship with my parents. I started creating more. I made friends who are not threatened by this version of me. I moved across the country. I started a job I was unqualified for. I found a church I love attending. I started going to therapy. I became a runner and went to a run club. I stayed single. I cut my hair and then grew it out again.

Last year was hard. But not in the same way as the years prior. It was a different kind of difficulty where it wasn’t because of my circumstances but my mindset that I felt like a caged animal. It wasn’t until earlier this week that I realized I’m literally in the wilderness right now. God took me out of Egypt but He’s still working to get Egypt out of me. Just like the Israelites, I’ve wanted to turn back to what I begged God to rescue me from. Not because it was better but because it was comfortable. It was familiar. This year, I executed. Not perfectly, but more often than not. And that’s all that matters.