A lot happened from September until today and I will loop back and write about those adventures in the near future. Unrelated, I have been fighting a Florida Swamp Flu for the past week that I picked up while visiting my family for Christmas.

The delights of Florida Swamp Flu are not what I have come to discuss, though. The New Year is what I am contemplating right now. I am such a fan of the start of the year. I am ready for fresh starts and nothing feels fresher than Jan. 1.

Last year, my goals were to let go and create. And like anything that you ask the Universe for, those opportunities showed up in spades. 2019 was challenging and heartbreaking but to frame it positively, it was full of learning, growing and expanding myself beyond who I knew myself to be. I am grateful for it and proud of myself for moving through it all. Gracelessly at times, yet with courage to mess up and try again.

For 2020, I am putting my focus on one word: Freedom.

Freedom of all sorts. Financial freedom, spiritual freedom, freedom with my time, freedom to travel, freedom to authentically express myself, and much more. More freedom in all areas of my life. After last year, I am interested to see how opportunities for freedom will present themselves throughout 2020.

I am also giving myself the freedom to let love find me. I am letting go of the looking for love around every corner. I don’t just mean romantic love. I mean work that I love, friends that I love, coffee shops that I love and adventures I love. This year, they will all find me. I won’t search, struggle or try to control or grasp at people, places or things. If it doesn’t flow, I will let it go.

Another thing that I am thinking about at the start of this year, is something that my Faux Pa Tom quoted to me from Teddy Roosevelt’s “The Man in the Arena.” In full, it reads:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

The part that Tom quoted was “his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” I may not succeed at everything I have done or will do but I have felt the distinct joy of victory and I am determined to have that feeling as much as possible.

Victory and freedom feel quite similar to me. Standing on top of any mountain I have ever climbed. Stepping on stage or to the front of a room and making people laugh. Being at the front of the crowd at the concerts of my favorite bands. These all feel like victory and freedom to me. I am looking forward to digging into these experiences and feelings throughout the year. I accept that this means I will also experience some failures. I know that these failures are temporary and do not define me and that I can keep going.

Cheers to 2020, everyone. Happiness, fun and infinite adventure are available to us all, we just need to get in that arena.