Dear 2012,

When I first met you, I wasn’t sure how to feel about you. In every way I looked at it, you were just like the life I’ve already became to known–feeling stuck in my career, unhappy with my home and family life, back on again with my off again relationship, angry at losing people in my life to death–and really just angry in general–you seemed just like the year before. I had no real hope or expectations of anything truly spectacular happening.

As time went on with you, things went from “normal” to worse–falling out with a close friend, feeling trapped in my own mind, and to top off the icing on my shit cake–feeling forced to move away from home after a horrible fight with my family. Needless to say, by Summer I officially hated your fuckass guts.

I’ve never liked playing the victim or liked hosting pity parties so I decided to beat you at your own game and get a plan together. I stepped it up in my career, got a second job, and made the decision to not move back home and get my own place instead. And after talking about it literally FOR YEARS, I did. I thank God for the help that I had in that process, even my family finally coming back around. Maybe they saw something in myself that I didn’t at the time, because I had no idea what I was getting myself into whatsoever. I just knew failure was not an option. So I worked and I worked hard, and somewhere along the way I was off again in my on again relationship. I’m not sure if I read this somewhere, but shit hurts a lot less when you’re too busy to think about it. Maybe it’s a quote, maybe it’s something that just popped up in my crazy ass head but I’m sticking with it.

When I wasn’t working like Mario Lopez, I spent more time with my friends and family. I stopped being so scary and stepped out of the box a bit. I cut someone very toxic out of my life that had been slowly draining the sanity out of me for a long, long time. I got back in touch with the friend I fell out with. I met Prince Charming…..wait, false alarm.

I started writing again. A lot. Poems, short stories, screenplays, lyrics–whatever I could do could keep my brain flowing with creativity, I wrote it. And just randomly, I ended up with an idea for a web series. I got with friends, both old and new, and put a plan together. It’s either going to blossom or fail, but at least it’s going to happen.

Things flew and changed left and right, by the time I knew it Fall had arrived and I have to say, I liked you. We were getting along better than any of the other years I could remember in a long time. And for the first time in a long time, I was genuinely happy. I cut all the bullshit, focused on my career, had a great circle around me that are true and constantly help me to grow and encourage me to do the same, and I started a blog.

I’m not going to go much into Winter because we both know I was being nothing short of a Cotton Headed Ninnymuggins.

So while the start was rough, the end result came out to be a beautiful friendship. Thank you 2012 for being the greatest year pretty much ever–you taught me the true meaning of what it is to live life and live it to be happy. Tell your girl 2013 she better come correct, because I’m ready.

Love forever,

Sherita