Happy New Year sweet friends! We have entered 2016 and with that brings great power and responsibility. Actually I think that’s what happens when you mysteriously find out you have superpowers but you get the gist. This is the most excited I’ve been about January 1st in a long time. I have become somewhat bitter about resolutions in the past few years. I always go into January knowing that any resolution I make will be broken in a few weeks or even days so I’d start each year ready for my own personal ball to drop. Last year at this time I was still living in California, working at a job I wanted to leave, and just generally an unhappy person. My life at the time was filled with work stress, bad dating experiences, unhealthy lifestyle choices, and a handful of panic attacks. Needless to say I was a mess.
After a trip to urgent care when I convinced myself I had managed to get gonorrhea of the throat (FYI it was tonsillitis and I am actually crazy/had no reason to assume I was diseased) I realized I had to make a life change. 2014 had been a bitch of a year: a breakup with my boyfriend of seven years, a car crash that totaled my Jetta, a couple bad experiences with friends, and as the cherry on top a friend’s dog tried to bite my dog, punctured my elbow, and ripped a hole in my shirt exposing my bra to my entire office. To put it lightly, the year sucked a bag of dicks.
So I entered 2015 trying to figure out how to change my life. I thought about the things that were making me unhappy and decided I would do whatever was in my power to change them. Instead of letting things happen to me, I would make things happen to myself. I know this seems pretty obvious but at the time it felt like the hardest thing in the world. By mid-January I worked up the guts to give notice at work. By February I had packed up my apartment in LA and said goodbye to a few friends I realized were no longer enriching my life. By March I had moved across the country and was settling into my apartment in Brooklyn with my best friend and new roommate. By April I had booked my first freelance gig – a task that had seemed impossible at first. And on May 7th I celebrated my 28th birthday with some of my closest friends, while living in a city I loved, and felt truly happy.
That being said, last year definitely had ups and downs. It was absolutely the best year of my life but it’s because the mix of good and bad helped me appreciate the new life I had created for myself. I got to travel to cities around the US for work and for fun. I went to Central America for the first time (terrifying) and traveled the hell out of Europe (amazing). I also had my heart stomped on a few times and used every bad date or disappointment to help me figure out what I’m really looking for. I drank too much, and made out too much, and laughed harder than I’ve ever laughed in my life. This is starting to sound like a Lifetime movie but to put it eloquently: last year was cool as fuck and I’m proud as shit.
My mantra for the year is “don’t do nothing.” It’s terrible grammar and it makes me laugh. In late December I went on a long walk with my sister and one of my oldest friends. We talked about our resolutions and where we saw ourselves in the new year. A common theme was that we we’re all tired of knowing what we want, knowing what we need to do to get it, but letting life pass us by without making any changes. Hence “don’t do nothing” was created. While choosing to swipe for hours on Tinder can be entertaining, I’m not actually enriching my life or working towards anything I want by doing it. Even little changes like working out one extra day a week, or choosing to indulge in one scoop of ice cream instead of a pint can make a huge change.
So I’m excited to see what this new year brings. This blog is going to continue to grow and change. Whitney and I are so excited about new content we’ve been concepting for this year. In fact, we spent an entire day treating ourselves via spa, shopping, and restaurants just to talk about our next steps. We started The Struggle in October of last year and have been blown away by the response. Thank you so much to everyone that read and shared the blogs. Thank you to everyone that commented and personally reached out to share their experience reading the blog. We had over 2000 views and over 500 visitors which may not seem like a lot, but means so much to us.
So here’s to 2016. It’s gonna be a hell of a year.
The Struggle 