2013 in a Nutshell

After five exhausting months with AmeriCorps, I got to spend the weekend with some of the best people I’ve ever met…the Team Leaders of the Southern Region AmeriCorps campus. Hearing about everyone’s struggles and growth in our time apart was sometimes hilarious and mostly inspiring. We did it. We made it through our first SPIKE…in mostly one piece. Being with everyone caused a lot of reminiscing over the past couple months: Corps Team Institute, Team Leader Training, and the collegiate months leading up to my first post-graduate job. Through our many walks down memory lane, I realized an incredible truth: 2013 has been the best year of my life thus far.

I feel like every year I’m certain that this year is the best…and I am totally okay with that. I hope I think that the current year is always the best year. That just means I’m always moving forward, loving life more and more fully, and growing into an even better version of me constantly. I am fully convinced that I learned more in the past year than I have all the other years of my life combined. A college Professor of mine once said that when you are 20, you are essentially a new born. Every year after you turn 20 you are constantly consuming an overload of information. When you’re 22, you know twice as much as you did when you were 20…and 4 times more when you’re 24…and so on. This kind of seems like a tangent now that I’ve written it out…but I guess I’m just trying to say that my Professor was completely correct and that being a professional is more educational than being a student any day. What a wonderful revelation. J

So here are just a few of the many things that made 2013 the best year…ever.

• Rode a tandem bicycle
• Learned “River Flows in You” on piano
• Performed at ICCA’s with Take it SLO
• Was completely in love
• Traveled to Amsterdam with Dave
• Had my first marketing internship
• Bought myself a harmonica (that I still need to learn how to play)
• Graduated college with my Bachelor’s degree
• Spent an awesome weekend with my dad in Buffalo and Niagara Falls
• Went to Las Vegas for the first time
• Worked (and am still working) for AmeriCorps
• Went to New Orleans for the first time
• Visited five brand new states
• Turned Bayou 6 into a family <3
• Became a part of Team Green
• Started calling my Dad and brother on the phone

You know what rocks even more than knowing that 2013 was awesome? Knowing that 2014 is going to be even better. I will be spending the first 6 months of the year finishing up my time with AmeriCorps…and I already have a bunch of half-baked ideas about what I want to do with the rest of the year: move to a big city with fellow TLs, work for a marketing company, travel across Spain, start planning a possibly bakery opening…etc. I have never been full of so much hope or promise in my life. I am so grateful that I work for AmeriCorps for the obvious growth and love that is constantly surrounding me…but also because these are the people I am going to start the rest of my life with! I cannot begin to describe just how excited I am. Oh, 2013…and the excitement of 2014!! This has been a wonderful year. Thank you to every last one of you that supported me in my many crazy, stupid, impulsive, irrational, and intelligent decisions this year. Your support means the world.

Ah, I’m so damn happy. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!