Part 1: Lessons from a Trip Around the Sun

This year has been one of lessons and growth on a fast paced and intense level for me. In 14 days I turn 45 and this year of 44 pushed me into spaces and places that I never expected. In both beautiful and heart wrenching ways. Through the process I learned lessons about myself and how I need to move through the world in order to stay strong through whatever life throws at me.

One area that I see the impact of these changes is in my ability and drive to create. Particularly, I haven't written a blog post in a while. So here I am beginning again at a new pace.

I started posting a lesson a day on social media ( Instagram and TikTok) but in addition, I am going into more depth here on what these lessons have meant to me and why they are important.

Day 1 of 15

Lesson 1: There is no certainty in life

Since I was 21 and my life was changed with an unexpected pregnancy, I realized the truth to the saying "life is what happens while you are making plans". This has been very true ever since. Yet, what I didn't realize about myself is that I kept making those plans and continued to be disappointed when the visions I created did not come to fruition.

This year, I was hit with the reality of that like a Mack truck when I realized the uncertainty of human nature. We cannot control what others say and do to us or in our lives. But what I can control is the need to know the outcomes and certainty that what I envision becomes my reality. I was fearful of what were to happen without the security blanket of planning out the future, But once the future became the present and it didn't fit my vision, I was disappointed. My fear made me hold onto certainty as a way to protect myself from hurt or challenges. That only made the truth of my life more painful when it hit.

On the flip side, there were opportunities and doors that opened that I never could have imagined that led me on paths I had only dreamed of. That fear and need to control would have stopped me from experiencing something beyond my limited dreams because I would not have made space for the possibility that uncertainty could be a gift.

Now at 44 years old I am ok with the idea of uncertainty and not knowing what can or will happen next. My faith in the universe is that no matter what it is, good or bad I will get through it and come our stronger. That allows me to lean into uncertainty as an opportunity and not something to fear.

So just like I hope my birthday to come will have some surprises, I know that my year will be filled with uncertainty and I embrace the possibilities that can open up for me.