I can’t believe it’s over. It’s completely surreal. Day freaking 365! 365 posts. 365 times I opened myself up to the world and most importantly 365 promises I kept to myself.
This is an incredibly emotional post for me, far more so than I thought it would be. I had planned to give myself a lot more time to write it, but as is so often the case, life is what happens whilst you’re busy making plans and here I am, a day into the new year trying to find the words to sum up the last 365 days and finish the labour of love that has been this blog. I remember writing Day 1 like it was last week, I was so nervous to be so honest, sitting in my garden it took me half an hour to work up the courage to press post and here I am, a year later, spitting my truth like you’re all family.
365 Days That Count started as a challenge and as a way of making sure I didn’t let the year escape me and although it did just that, it turned out to be far more challenging than I could ever have anticipated. Writing honest and raw content is hard, especially when life is chucking the book at you. To debunk emotions that are still painful, to be honest about things that are incredibly personal and to find enough perspective in the middle of the madness to find your truth when you’re still figuring it out for yourself is sometimes near impossible. But somehow, although messily and roughly at times, I managed. I made myself this promise whilst lying in hospital praying for a second chance and when life pushed me to the point of giving up, I remembered that promise and found the time, strength and resolve to honour it, to keep going, to catch up and make up time and time again.
I’m really proud of this blog. And I’m really proud of myself for sticking to it. I have given you all raw and authentic passage into my heart and soul for an entire year.
I’ve shared with you my highest highs and my lowest lows and I’m so grateful for the love and support I received in return. I’ve been more honest with you all than I have with even those closest to me, somehow feeling safer in this little online world than I do in my own. Less judged, less criticised and more accepted. I want to thank each and every one of you for joining me on this beautiful journey. I started with about 40 followers and am finishing with over 1130. Based entirely on my personal stories I think that is an awesome progression to have made.
I’ve learnt so much and I’ve grown so much. In some ways I’m sad it’s coming to an end. This blog has kept me accountable to myself and to all of you. It’s kept me present and grateful and humble. But it has not been easy, it was a much bigger commitment than I had first anticipated and as my audience grew so did the pressure to deliver something worthy of their time. I know I haven’t always succeeded at that, but I promise you, it has always been my goal. I have a lump in my throat as I write this. I don’t think I can properly describe what you’ve all given me. Confidence, a voice, the feeling of being understood. I am so so grateful.
2017 was the beginning of this new universal 9 year cycle and for that I'm grateful because I'm not going to pretend it was easy!
It was hard. But hard is good. Hard makes you grow, hard chucks you in the deep end and hard forces you to look in an unfiltered mirror. There've been more challenges this year than I can count and I've tried to make the best of the learning opportunities delivered with each, sometimes more successfully than others. It's been a year of highs and lows and a year of contradictions. I've grown and stayed the same. I’ve moved forward and been set back. I’ve tried and succeeded and tried and failed. It's tested my resolve in every way and shown me the harsh truth of how far I still have to go. But in doing so, it's also shown me just how far I've come. The last few years have been by far the hardest of my life but ultimately, I wouldn't change a thing as without each challenge, each set back, each hurdle - even those that nearly cost me my life - I wouldn't be where I am right now and although that may not be where I want to be, it's far closer than I've been before.
More than anything, I strive for happiness, for myself and for the ones I love and that's my real wish for 2018. To find happiness and peace within. To keep growing. To keep evolving. To keep bettering myself. To make new connections. To learn new things. To explore new places. I hope this is a year of adventure in every way. I hope it's the best one yet and I hope I can make myself proud.
This is definitely not the end of my journey on Steemit but it’s the end of 365 Days That Count as we know it.
I’m looking forward to the chance to explore more sides of Steemit and focus on the areas of life that I’m most passionate about. I made a promise to myself to be honest in every 365 Days post and although I’ve kept that promise the sacrifice has been entertainment value for you all, it can’t be very interesting to hear about my latest sob story with some silly guy so I’m looking forward to making it up to you with content that is more curated, more aimed at what I think you’d enjoy and more focused on only the good without feeling like a liar for not telling you the bad. My challenge to myself this year is self love. I want to do at least one thing each day that honours the importance of looking after and protecting my spirit. I want to love myself and I want my actions to be in line with that goal. So, amongst other things and although the format will be slightly different, I will keep myself accountable by noting and sharing those self loving activities. I'll also be focusing on all things love, health, food, nature and adventure so look out Steemit family, I'm going to be hitting your news feeds a lot more often! To end this post and the chapter it is closing I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart, for accepting me, for making me feel welcome, for sharing with me and for helping me find my voice. I'm so grateful and I wish for each and every one of you nothing but love, light, abundance, happiness, health and prosperity. May this new year be the best one yet for all us, may it bring greats things, great love and great joy.
