Dear 2011,

The past year was a beautiful train wreck, if there is such a thing at all. I lost one of my dearest friends and I think about him daily, God was present in the midst of my insanity, good friends passed through my life and moved on to a new chapter in their own lives elsewhere from here, my nieces are growing up right before my eyes, I have been in a constant state of childhood, repeating mistakes and learning from the pain, falling down and getting back up again.

I learned, once again, that I am a mess, but the good kind. In my weakness, I find that I'm stronger. I say all this from the truest part of my heart. I have been a scrambling mess, and I've watched my foundations seemingly fall apart right in front of me and come back together again. Another repeated lesson learned is that it is good to ask questions. Questions are there to remind you to ask yourself who you are at the present moment, who you have been, and who you want to be. Questioning anything in your life can be a terrifying thing, because asking one doesn't always guarantee an answer, or even the answer you wanted to hear.

The most precious part of a question, to me, is the journey in finding the answer, whether there is one or not. This has been the year of a thousand questions, big questions. I thought, at one point, it would be better to simply not ask certain ones, as they all seemed to be terribly beside the point... but I found that, as I asked, I was more shaken than the person who originally proposed them aloud to me. Some questions I spent months searching for the answer, and they repeated in my head daily like nagging reminders. I eventually obtained answers to some and still in search of the answers to others, but I'm okay in knowing there probably isn't an answer, because me wanting an answer isn't always good enough of a reason for getting one.

Wanting an answer is probably my search for hearing what I want to hear, more often than not. I'm almost certain that if I got answers to everything that went through my head, I wouldn't necessarily like it or find it a justifiable answer... but some things, like life, don't need my justified answers. No matter the outcome of my reasoning, the unfathomable cannot necessarily be made more fathomable, nor should it.

I learned that it is good to question, it is good to ask "Why" and "How come" and "What for", while remembering not to get hung up on little things. You will quickly lose perspective of the bigger picture if you're stuck on one tiny insignificant detail. It is good, in the middle of your asking, to remind yourself of the truths you know to be true, the bigger picture truths-- the perspective. This is not a logic or philosophical thing, this is a human thing. I'm not here to say, "What is truth?" Although that, too, is a very good, very big, very arguable question. I'm merely saying, there are beautiful and good truths to which, at the core of our being, humans may fight but know to be true. I'll leave you to argue with yourself as to what those truths might be.

One thing I hope to find in you, 2011, is an appetite for living life daily, focusing on one day at a time and not getting so caught up in the months to come. I don't want to think of you as a single year, but rather as 365 individual days, 8, 760 individual hours of which I must make the most of, from one moment to the next. I want to live life to the fullest, sharing well and laughing often. I want to breathe deep and say yes to beautiful things more often. I know who I am and where I stand in this minute, but I hope to daily keep perspective when things try to taint or change that, attempting to convince me that I am or that I want something else for my life that is less than what I deserve. Settling is not an option, anger is useless, bitterness is like digging your own grave, and unforgiving will bury you alive. If you forgive, tell the truth, love deeply and remember who you are in all things, then you've no cause for shame and your freedom comes from God and knowing who you are in Him, that your future is secure in His love.

Worrying will take years off of your life, but trust will blossom your creativity, motivate your work ethic, and give you better sleep at night. So will honesty, with yourself and with others. Always be honest with yourself, allow yourself to feel deeply. Those who acknowledge what they feel are free to feel it and move on from it or dwell in the goodness of it, knowing that what they feel does not define their existence, and allows them to inhabit a place of consistent joy in their lives. Those who do not are not free at all, they are not honest with themselves and in so can not hope to be honest with other people, and honesty is an essential in love. You cannot truly or deeply love without honesty. And if you cannot be honest, and you cannot love, then you can never be truly free. Best, then, to be honest with yourself and with others, if you hope for such things as freedom, love, or joy.

And so, 2011, I don't wish to make promises I don't intend to keep. My goal for you, and for the days and years to come, is to live the fullest from moment-to-moment, drinking deeply of all God's beauty in this world, and being satisfied with nothing less.

Your friend,

Ashley