"love, prepare yourself to shine."

"Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinion drown your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs

It's 2011...and strange to think that just a year ago I was leaving to start out on an adventure to France, starting this blog in hopes of having a way to look back at it all. It was an incredible year. Last year, I wrote a journal entry saying that I thought the word that would best summarize my year in 2010 would be growth.

And in many ways, that would be true. I went to France on my own – traveled and saw the world, did so much my parents never were able to do; and now Seattle – where I have my first job and corresponding paycheck, and my first stab at the real world. To be honest, I’m not sure what 2011 is going to bring – lots of joy and struggles to be sure, new ups and downs to learn from and grow with.

I think for 2011, I would like my word to be individual. I want to continue to learn who I am, and to define it. I want to broaden my sense of self and start to figure out the rest of my life, however that’s going to end up. Adjusting to working every day has been a different challenge than my challenges of last year. And although it's been a huge change in many ways, I definitely feel like I do valuable work. And I actually like what I'm doing. Which I'm sure surprises no one except for me. I think one of my problems is that I like everything I do. And so then I never know what I actually want to do the most. And that's why I have trouble making decisions...yes, trouble making decisions, huge shocker, I know. So one of my goals is to start doing the choosing, even if it's difficult, consciously and deliberately picking one thing over the other because it's what I want, and not what anyone else wants.

Seattle is calm for the most part, and there's a routine. I go to work, I laugh with my cubemates, I come home, I go to volleyball on Wednesdays (i know, right?) , I spend time with a boy who loves me, I drink obscene amounts of coffee, I train for my 2nd half marathon (june 5th!!!), and sometimes I get lost in all of that. And it's all good, don't get me wrong. But I am bold and daring, and have so much more out there to accomplish and dream and do. And I think that's a lofty enough goal for 2011. Bring it on :)