There's a reason "Auld Lang Syne", the song associated with ringing in New Year, is so damn melancholy - the passage of time, the changing of seasons, it's all quite bittersweet, isn't it? I woke up yesterday morning, on the first day of the new year, in Los Angeles surrounded by my wonderful and loving friends, with a horrible pit in my stomach and tears clinging to my eyelashes. I felt profoundly blue - the kind of blue where you can't pinpoint what has caused it, but you feel it so acutely, in every fiber of your being, that you wonder if other people can feel it in you, too? And I think its because of the New Year.

In Anne of Green Gables, Anne Shirley says, “Isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?”... and that is a lovely thought. But, just because tomorrow holds new promises, it doesn't negate whatever experiences you've had yesterday. And for me, I think I realized that the residual effect of the last few years - the last two years specifically - have almost changed my DNA. I'm not the same woman I was two years before. The differences in me are are hard to verbalize - but the change is there, all the same. You can look doe-eyed into the future, make all the resolutions you want, and genuinely strive to make this world a better place, and in the end, you can still feel incredibly melancholy over the past.

I started 2017 off on a terrible note - we elected a truly evil man as our president, my work life was legitimately awful, and my Grandfather had just died over the Christmas holidays. I spent New Years Eve in my apartment working - as I've done with every New Years Eve for the better part of a decade. And the year only got more difficult. Work became more and more unbearable, my stress level rose to the point that I gained weight and lost large chunks of hair...and then my Grandmother died unexpectedly. I should point out, I lost my other grandmother the year before on my birthday. It was devastating. My job progressively got worse and worse until I hit a breaking point. And over the summer of 2017, I quit. I went back to Texas to spend some time amongst the bluebonnets and Pecan trees and with the coven of sassy women with thick accents who raised me. It was there in the hot Texas sun, that I realized I had absolutely nothing in my life other than work. Zero to show for the last decade, save for a very impressive resume and acute anxiety. I didn't date. I didn't travel outside of business trips. Every single experience I had was directly connected to my job. All I could think was, dear God, If I were dying, what would I look back on my life and think about? Be proud of? And the answer was clear - if I didn't make a change, that answer would be nothing. I had nothing and would continue to have nothing until I did something. So, I watched Nancy Meyers movies and used my inheritance to relocate to Vermont for some soul searching and "me" time.

And the thing is, I am incredibly proud of myself for making an, albeit reactionary and not well thought out, move. I needed to hard-restart my life and I did. I took the leap. Allowed myself to just "be". I started training five days a week. I began hiking through the lovely Green Mountains. I started writing. I tried to get my sleep patterns back on track. I took vitamins. I had friends come to visit. I took hour long hot baths where I tried to work-out all the worlds problems in my head. I read and read and read until my brain stopped working. I had come to Jesus moments with myself. I tried to love myself more and forgive the things I could. I processed being a part of a company that harbored a sexual predator. I shoveled snow and cursed the world for everything. I took chances. I allowed myself to open my heart up and be vulnerable. I found myself getting excited about life again. I wanted to meet people. I remembered what it felt like to be something more than someone's "right hand". I allowed myself to get hurt and process those feelings. I said things I meant even when they were hard and didn't end the way I prayed they would. I did all of these things for the most selfish and most important reason I can think of - I did it for me. Because for as long as I can remember, I have given my entire self to jobs that siphoned all the joy out of me. And I am a joyful person. It's just going to take a bit to find her again.

My friend Melea went with me to get our tarot cards read yesterday - it seemed a fitting thing to do on New Years Day with a super moon. The woman spoke to my soul - said things that there's no possible way she could have known from even googling me. It was incredibly scary but hopeful. Apparently after I left, when Melea went in for her session, she told her she needed a quick breather because mine had been so intense - and it was - the thing she kept reiterating was that I needed to be the captain of my own life (or in Nancy Meyer's terms, I need to be my own leading lady). This time is for me to replenish and water my desert to create the oasis I deserve. To work through my karma and all the residual negativity that I've carried around with me for the past few years. She, like Anne Shirley, sees good things ahead for me. Sees the future bright and lovely and full of the potential to fall in love, find a career that fulfills my heart and allows me to use all the skills that have been dormant for so long. But that doesn't mean the past few years won't continue to peek their head around the corner. Stop by to remind me of what was and who I was and what I gave up for so long. It's a weird sort of safety net to keep yourself from falling into the same old traps. And I think its ok to be blue over what you've lost, and those things you missed because of the life you chose. Sure, there's the potential for everything to come, but there's a bit of grief to that as well.

I'm happy to say goodbye to the past and look towards the future. And I'm hopeful that one day down the road, the sun will shine a bit brighter, and 2017 won't have quite the same sting. It'll feel like the former lover you had, who after enough time passed, you're able to see with a fuzzy warm aura around them. You're able to recall the good things they brought into your life and the lessons learned, not the pain of the heartbreak. I think thats the best we can hope for in this short time around the sun.