January 1st 2020: I am here.

These are my feet photographed in the leaves I have been meaning to rake now for a solid two months. It's the last photo I took on my phone in 2019. To me it emphasizes the importance of staying grounded when life gets a little wobbly, staying in the here and now, escaping my racing thoughts more frequently. More importantly though, this picture is to remind myself to rake those damn leaves. Now, I could mean this on a deeper level, clear those things from your life which no longer positively serve you. Wouldn't that be deep and poetic? But nah, I just need to be made accountable for trivial things. I'm an adult, I swear.

We don't even have the trees, that's the frustrating part. We don't get to enjoy the shade of them, they're our neighbors. It's the equivalent to them having a dog, they get to cuddle it, play with it, and all the fun parts... While I have to clean up it's chocolate land mines. Plus they produce a yellow pollen that coats our truck like snow, ugh. I'm talking about the actual trees again, not dogs anymore, that crash landed straight into a rant, sorry. I love nature don't get me wrong, but in this situation, it's irritating. Anyways, after the first couple storms we had, I went out and raked my little heart out. Then the next week another storm comes, then another, and I figured waiting out the final leaves to drop sounded like the way to go. I'm sure our neighbors hate us for this, but like my husband says "We can't tell it's ugly from in here."

At the beginning of 2019, I promised myself I'd make my mental health a priority and I knew I needed professional help to do so. Which meant going far outside of my comfort zone but I'm proud of myself for following through. Also for sticking to many of my other small goals I had set. Small victories, which I won't get into because that's sooo last year. Let's focus on this year, welcome to a new decade! 2020 brings us 365 new days to fill up with memories and opportunities. I have my list of goals and resolutions for the year. I won't bore you with it, but it does include pushing myself further outside of my comfort zone-- which is also why I'm doing this. By the way, I lied when I said I wasn't going to bore you with my list. Lucky for you though, I won't post it tonight.

Soon.

Anyways, it's Capricorn season, and I'm here.

xoxo