2016: Story

"Much wisdom often goes with fewer words" ~Sophocles

2012: Pause

2013: Listen

2014: Accept

2015: Ready

2016: Story 

Starting in 2012 at the approach of each year I choose a word to spend those twelve months focusing on, and every year I am blown away by how pertinent that word becomes. 

2015 was full. 

January to May I student taught in a city I love with a person I view as an immensely valuable friend and mentor. From May to August I worked summer camp with brilliant kids who taught me that I am capable, just like them. I also learned during the sweltering Virginia summer what depression feels like. With wise and loving help I gained some tools for allowing a spectrum of emotions into my life without defining myself or my day by any of them. In August I accepted a job across the Country in familiar territory with new everything. A job that surprised, stretched and excited me then and every day since. 

In 2015 I went to Arizona, California, Mexico, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, and drove myself from Virginia to Utah. I read twenty-nine books, watched the entire series of Parks and Recreation, and finished my Master's degree. 

And I bought a new car. So could I be more adultly? No way Jose. 

I also bombed all of my 2015 Resolutions (like, bombed), moved back into a shared apartment (an apartment), went on one date (yep, one), and I still use a phone that has buttons on it (really, buttons). Lest ye think me fully put together. 

But man, that was a good year. 

I didn't put together how packed 2015 was until I got to the end of it and started reviewing through photos and  my once-a-day journal. (I made a journal where I write down one line about what I did that day. It can fit about ten years worth of days. I'm obsessed.) As I thought about how my 2015 word, Ready, permeated every phase of those twelve months it made me want to select my 2016 word carefully and purposefully. And it's Story. Story. 

There are many things that led up to me selecting "Story" as my 2016 word: Family history interviews from the past two years and the invaluable insights that came from them; Writing a book with my dear friend Connie; Accepting unexpected experiences and empowering their ability to impact through sharing them with others; A friend of mine planting a writing idea in my mind for kids with autism; Attending the Storytelling Festival in September; Hearing the incredible stories of people I love across the Nation through my travels, and reading "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years" by Don Miller. 2015 left me no choice. Story had to be my word. 

In 2016 I want to live a better story. I want to hear stories, share stories, record stories, create stories, understand what makes a good story, and live a story I'd like to have told to me. That's my word. No resolutions this year, no plan, just an idea. 

"You can call it God or a conscience, or you can dismiss it as that intuitive knowing we all have as human beings, as living storytellers; but there is a knowing I feel that guides me toward better stories, toward being a better character. I believe there is a writer outside ourselves, plotting a better story for us, interacting with us, even, and whispering a better story into our consciousness." ~Don Miller

My hopes for 2016 in three words: Character. Setting. Conflict.