Goodbye, 2017. I wish you would just slow down.

Is it odd that I don't want this year to end?

2015 and 2016 I was ready to burn down in mania and enter the new year. Those years were rough.

2017 was too. But it's been the most wonderful learning exprience. I've learned more this year about me, about my gifts, about Christ, about God's power, about love and serving others than I have in my last ten years combined. I worry letting this year go before embarking into the great unknown (2018) may be finding me with another downer year like 2015 or 2016.

But I'm hopeful.

I don't have any new year's resolutions. Usually in December I assess how I'm doing and whether or not I feel I need to ring in the new year with a desire to change some aspect of me or my life.

But this year blew by so fast I never had the time to be so reflective...and I feel that's my cue to enter the new year with an open heart and open mind and what will be, will be.

One small change I've made (because lawd knows I could write a novel about all the changes) is that I don't think I'm going to be so public about this blog, as in linking it on my social media (except G+, for now); neither updating friends when I post something new. If you find this and read it, welcome, and I hope you stay. I hope you like what I write.

I have been feeling pressed to talk about the things on my mind and the emotions I carry within my heart, but I've decided that who finds it and reads it are the ones who need to, or should...not I trying to project my thoughts and feelings on others and await a response in return.

I have realized while my advice may be decent, that sometimes it isn't the best for the person I'm giving it to. And that's ok. Everyone's path is different and the best advice for my life will not always be the best advice for someone else.

(It's also frustrating to give advice and watch the person do the absolute opposite.)

So instead I'll go within and speak quietly what lies there, what burrows beneath the surface that I show the world...and write about it here where it's public, but safe at the same time.

Most people seem to find my blog from my "Why I'm No Longer the Type Three Woman" post. But rarely does anyone care to read what else I've written or especially what I recently post about. And I find comfort in that...oddly.

I often think about this blog and yearn to write in it. But grow in anxiety over feeling like I must share what I write. But I remind myself that in writing and in keeping a blog, there are no rules. Who says I have to blast my writings as far as my social media will reach only to chew my nails over the possible reaction of the friends/family reading it?

I hope to enter the new year (ok, wait, maybe this is a new year's resolution?) to write more musings on a regular basis. But there are no guarantees. To do so would be to have a quiet moment in my day where the madness in my mind is far away, where I don't have people needing my attention, where I don't have my mental list of daily things haunting me. While I'm reflective quite a bit, taking the time to write my reflections down can be mentally draining and time consuming.

But I'm hopeful. :)