A Look Back at 2017
/**Photos and Video at the end of this post!**
Another year has come and gone, seemingly quicker than the ones that preceded. You hear older people tell you that time starts speeding up as you get older, and regardless of what you believe in the moment, their words will ring true once you gain a few more years experience.
2017 is being categorized as "terrible" by people who are solely looking at it from a political or social world view. And you know, I'd have to agree with you. But if you keep those sad glasses on to view the year, you're bound to come away with a lot of pent up aggression along with a fair amount of depression.
So instead, I challenge you to take a scroll back to January of 2017 in your phone's camera roll and take a good look at all the things you did, the people you saw, and places you went. I think you may be surprised at how good your year actually was.
I've put together the "highlights" from my year, below. I leave out a lot of the mundane things like the eight million photos of my cats, shared memes, and desk selfies at the office, because those aren't the things I will remember. The stuff I'll remember and look back on, are the experiences outside the 9-5 (well, for me it's 7-3 but that's beside the point) grind.
This year I:
Drank a WHOLE lot of coffee, worked at a climbing gym, became a better climber, became part of a new community, further healed from a breakup - which included quitting my job at the climbing gym, went to Colorado, traveled to North Carolina, started this blog, shot my first wedding and went on to shoot two more, hiked all around Tennessee, enjoyed as many waterfalls as I could, camped, hiked, did some yoga, learned to snowshoe, dealt with the most incredible amount of car trouble, saw a whole lot of amazing bands, witnessed a monumental solar eclipse, trail ran, upgraded my camera system - and took on a lot of debt, traveled to Boston and Maine, took public transit by myself, went to Arkansas, and climbed more and more and more.....
2017 wasn't bad. In fact, I went so many beautiful places with so many beautiful people that it was quite AMAZING - and I cannot wait to see what 2018 brings.
Dwell on the good things.
